Super Bowl XXXIX - February 6, 2005

 

New England Patriots v. Philadelphia Eagles

 

ED: FEEL the disinterest.  A team I loathe v. a team I don’t care about.  Yipee!  Am I back in college in the early-90’s wearing a cape out in the middle of a cow pasture?  Am III---III---III don’t believe I’ll go any further into my dark past, thank you.

 

BB: So THAT’S where the girls with morals and values who don’t sleep around or lie to you just to mess with your head or treat you terrible or arggh stupid present. And all I have to look forward to. This game? Come on. God, you gotta do better than this for me.

 

ED: Anyhoo, over/under on when we’ll probably quit paying any attention to this game is…about 5 minutes into the second quarter.  Man, do we not care about this game.  But boy do we have some hate for a whole lotta people involved in this crapfest. 

 

BB: Best case scenario: I am drunk and rioting before the game even begins. This means I can set fire to my own apartment BEFORE I get tear-gassed and/or shot in the eye by Boston riot police (yeah – let’s just say my suggestion to wear goggles during the Red Sox World Series rioting wasn’t the best idea), pocket the insurance money, and move somewhere where I never have to watch any American sports again. Like, say, the sun. Stupid city. Stupid successful sporting teams. Stupid bitter existence.

 

ED: Let’s just get down to the hate.  Maybe we’ll even talk about the game too.  Who can be sure?

 

BB: I think maybe me and Ed’s goal with this is just to get you to hate the game more and more with each line. Or maybe it’s just to save on therapist costs – VP insurance doesn’t cover that much, you know.

 

Major Super-Duper Five Star Megatons O’ Hate: 

 

ED: Tom Brady.  Ga’head and call me a bitter Raider fan who has yet to get over Brady’s fumble in the ’01 playoffs.  But even I realize that fumble didn’t cost the Raiders as much as Chucky’s conservative play-calling did.  I have mostly moved on from that anyway.  Mostly.  Yet, I despise me some Tom Brady all the same.  Oh yes.  I do.  As proof, I’ve given far too much thought in how I’d like to see him die over the years.  A simple plane crash or some flesh-eating bacteria seems too…clean and neat, really.  No need to make a martyr out of him.  My preferred Brady death-scenario involves Brady’s body being found in a hotel room amid a gaggle of 13 year-old tranny’s related to Osama Bin Laden, with giant rocks of speed balls shoved into every orifice and a communist manifesto stapled to his forehead while the American flag burns in a trash can.  Someone peeing on a picture of Baby Jesus needs to be in the scene somewhere too, but I haven’t figured that part out yet.  Actually, at that point I wouldn’t want Brady dead.  I’d want him to suffer with the public indignity for years and years and years.  Yes, even my hate is sub-par.  ‘Course I’d also settle for Joe Montana stabbing him repeatedly with an ice pick at this point.  Anyway, obviously, God will strike me down for all that and give Brady another undeserved MVP.  I mean, he is playing the Eagles after all.

 

BB: Ed is an inventive man but he is rooted in his Midwestern themes of terrorism and patriotism. Being from New York I have already seen the worst of both and so this is really issues that I think I’m over at this point, replaced by an irrational dislike of pretty much anyone who isn’t me or thinks I’m a genius. I’m going to personally hope that Saturday night, Tom Brady stays out a little bit past curfew – because, you know, Tom Brady is a GAP SUPERSTAR and maybe he’s hanging out with Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick (see – New York) takes umbrage to this and decides to ask Tom Brady if maybe it’d be good if he just got off his girl and went back to the hotel and studied up the playbook and maybe got throat from some stripper or something. You can figure out your own stammering Ferris Bueller speech yourself, it’s not the point. So Tom Brady chuckles a little and shoves our 4’11” hero away. Matthew Broderick may be little but he is not alone. He gets on his phone and five minutes later, the front of the club starts to scream and gasp and separate. In, shockingly, come four thoroughbreds – no, actual horses, Matt Millen is at this club, too – and on them, four jockeys. Matthew Broderick’s midget gang. Quickly, they gallop towards the bar, where Tom Brady already has two rings down Sarah Jessica Parker’s overpriced jeans. The thoroughbreds crush Brady – they see that Parker’s one of their own, and leave her free. The jockeys get off their horses, who wait patiently while they tie each of Brady’s limbs to a horse, and then they ride off out of the club, to draw and quarter Tom Brady in front of the ESPN set, where Chris Berman and Tom Jackson are doing live coverage. Berman tries to step in to save his secret crush, but one of the jockeys remembers Berman years earlier making fun of his name in a Plays of the Week segment on SportsCenter, and pulls out a gun and shoots Berman square in the mush. Buffalo wing bones and ounces of Brett Favre drippings fly everywhere and Tom Jackson runs for his life and falls into the nearby bay, drowning (maybe his body ends up on an island with the pitchers from the Indians. Who knows) before he can be reached. Sweet freaking sassy molassy, I want to see bad things happen to those people.

 

ED:  Andy Reid.  Sure, he’s not a good coach.  Sure, he’s not too bright.  Sure, he’s a heart-attack waiting to happen.  Sure, he’s gotten by via dumb luck more than any living person this side of W.  But that’s not the reason…Wait.  That IS the reason.  That and that moustache.  Oh, that moustache.

 

BB: Now I am not one to fall for coaches by any means but I have no problem with Andy Reid. I’m not going to fellate him and I’m not going to proclaim him the next Bill Walsh but the Eagles organization does a pretty decent job of breaking guys in and somehow they have money available under the cap each year. So Andy Reid – organizational success saves you a merciless death.

 

ED:  Bill Belichick.  Naw, it’s not the Lombardi comparisons because…C’mere whilst I speak blasphemy…Lombardi was incredibly overrated.  Yes.  He was.  Now. if’n someone was to compare Belichick to, say, coaches who modernized the game like Paul Brown or Tom Landry then I’d be in a Boston area clock tower.  Lombardi was just a glorified drill sergeant with good talent.  Belichick is the by-product of good assistants and an incredibly well thought-out scouting department.  I remember his Cleveland years, speak of him as a good coach all ya want.  Take away Weis and Crenell, and Patriots fans will remember Belichick in much the same way as Browns fans remember him.  It’s only the fact the Peter King works as Belichick’s personal fluffer that makes us long for a 3-13 season.  Unfortunately, that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. Oh yeah, and really, work on that frickin’ hair, Bill.  You make enough money to not to look like a repressed HS science teacher who coaches girl’s basketball while “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” plays in your head at all times.

 

BB: I’m actually gonna go the other way around here and say that I’m gonna hate on Charlie Weis. Belichick can avoid my anger for a while just from him being bitter at Tom Jackson and cursing him out at the Super Bowl last year and not talking to ESPN since. But I can live without everyone talking about Charlie Weis being an offensive genius. And by live without – I mean shut up already. The Patriots were 4th in points this year, great. They were 10th last year and 12th the year before. GENIUS!! IF Tom Brady were such an offensive god and able to spread it around to 83 receivers and IF Charlie Weis could design such a brilliant short passing game to take advantage of Tom Brady’s “smarts” and “veteran instinct” (read: inaccuracy and inconsistency with the deep ball until this year – and if you don’t believe me, go read the Boston papers from last year, or get the Pats at Dolphins game tape from last year where all they talk about is how Brady can’t throw the deep ball all game – and then go read last week’s columns where they talk about what a great deep passer Brady is. God, people are idiots) and IF the Patriots had such a wide variety of great threats how come they didn’t have a premiere offense until, say…they got a star running back? Maybe Corey Dillon should be the next coach of Notre Dame. I support Corey Dillon’s plan to get pissed because he only has four carries at halftime (because of a BRILLIANT WEIS SCHEME to throw the Eagles off) and grab Jack Del Rio’s ax and chop Charlie Weis into a Hardee’s Thickburger.

 

ED:  Joe Buck.  I can only hope Terrell Owens waves little T.O. in front of everyone just so Joe Buck can explode.  If the explosion takes out Chris Collinsworth too, then this could be the greatest Super Bowl ever.  I wouldn’t put money on it.

 

BB: I’ve already spoken at length about how I’d like Joe Buck to pass but let’s just say NESN replaying the Red Sox-Yankees ALCS isn’t helping any.

 

ED:  Paul McCartney.  The only thing that could save this Super Bowl is if his wife/girlfriend takes off her peg leg and beats him to death with it to keep the world from having to hear “Hey Jude” one more friggin’ time.  If she sings “Instant Karma” the whole time, then we would live in a fair and just world. 

 

BB: I took the peg leg joke in the MLB preview, Ed will take it here in the Super Bowl preview. Rippa, you’re on deck.

 

Four Star Megatons O Hate:

 

ED:  Terrell Owens.  Sure, he’s…well, T.O.  The fact that the Eagles have applied the Ewing Theory to get to the Super Bowl without him, only to get him back for the Super Bowl they will lose, knocks him out of the deep loathing territory.  Now wave li’l T.O. for Joe Buck, already.

 

BB: Oh yeah – Terrell Owens’ desire for survival is directly correlated to how much stuff he does to piss off Joe Buck and the moral majority. Of course, he could also kill anyone on the Five Star list and immediately get knocked down to three star or even two star status. Go TO. Don’t get outshined by Freddie Mitchell.

 

ED:  Rodney Harrison.  Hey!  He’s a cheap shot artist who challenges kickers and B team WR’s!  Huzzah!  Meh.  He’s not even worth Ronnie Lott’s pinkie stub!

 

BB: I love how, by getting old, Rodney Harrison’s gone from cheap shot artist to respected veteran who hits hard but his fines never get mentioned in the public. Personally I’d like to see Rodney Harrison spear Terrell Owens in the jimmy right next to David Akers on the sideline, who then kicks Rodney Harrison’s head through the uprights for three. But maybe that is just me and David Akers is the only player on either of these teams I can get behind. 

Three Star Megatons O’ Hate

 

ED:  Freddie Mitchell.  C’mon, you’ve made one important catch in your life.  Shut it, already.

 

BB: Why can’t someone in the media ask him about the ball he fumbled on the goal line against the Vikings? Does no one else remember that?

 

ED:  Donovan McNabb.  It’s only the fact that any sort of success he could ever get from here on out sends Rush Limbaugh back to his trough full o’ pork rinds and Oxycotin that gets him this low.  Otherwise, his overratedness might equal Brady’s.  But horking off Limbaugh is good enough to lower his ranking.

 

BB: Eh, he already shaved the balding fro, he’s on his way down. How long till he’s co-hosting NFL Total Access on the NFL Network? Three years? Four, tops.

 

Two Star Megatons O’ Hate

 

ED:  Adam Vinatieri.  He’s a kicker.  There are about 700 guys in the NFL, NFL-E, AFL and CFL no worse than him.  Get off the clutch crap already.  He’s a kicker, people.  He’s supposed to kick the frickin’ ball.  Yeesh.

 

BB: I love comparing Vinatieri to Mariano Rivera to people around here. When you combine that with the Brady to Jeter comparison, they try and bury me in clam chowder. Unfortunately for them, I pee on my hands, so I get a good grip when they try and wring my neck and grab their jimmy and escape. Oh. Sorry – must not work blue.

 

ED:  Tedy Bruschi.  Dick Butkus scoffs.  Scoffs.  SCOFFS!

 

BB: I read that as Dick Butkus skeets which would just make this even less blue.