Super Bowl wrap-up

Marv Blackstone
Editor-in-chief

Man, even after shaking off my Nyquil and Becherovka-induced slumber, I'm still stunned by last night.

I hate sports cliches like chiggers in my denim shorts, but that game brought to mind several of the most well-known:

"That's why they play the games."

"Defense wins championships"

'Never give Eli Manning 2-plus minutes, while trailing, at the end of a game."

Shit, hombres. Wrap your fuzzy little gourds around that one. Eli Manning is a Super Bowl MVP. He joins illustrious company such as John Elway, Joe Montana, Bart Starr and Fred Biletnikoff.

Back on December, when I was live-blogging the first Patriots-Giants game, I kept highlighting how much Cris Collinsworth hated Ellis Hobbs. In a fairly lame joke, I ended up blaming Ellis Hobbs for everything that happened in the game.

Well, Ellis Hobbs got torched last night by Plaxico Burress, who played with a sprained ankle and a mildly-torn MCL.

Again, I blame Ellis Hobbs. Tell me, Ellis -- what the hell am I supposed to do with this?

You can send my reimbursement check to:

Marv Blackstone
That cabin in the woods, you know, the one with the flamingo sex scene in the front yard
Montana, US

Last night is why we love sports. We love that we never know what will happen at any given time. We love that, sometimes, underdogs come out on top. We love improbable catches on top of player's helmets. We love that, sometimes, our bowels cooperate with that fried-chicken and bratwurst chili and we only need to make one trip to the outhouse during the game, and when we get there, we find out that we actually DO have toilet paper.

Sometimes it's a good day like that.

For the Patriots, I think this loss is only going to get tougher as time goes on. Some are saying that it will only make them more hungry for next season. But how much hungrier can they really be? They reeled off 18 straight wins and pretty much smacked the snot out of the NFL for five months. That's not happening again next season. Pursuing perfection is far too exhausting.

I should know. Back in 1996, I attempted to achieve perfection on NBA Jam for Super Nintendo. I fancied playing as the Seattle SuperSonics, with Detlef Schrempf and Shawn Kemp. The mix of speed and power, shooting and dunking, pasty white and very, very black was perfect. As my prowess progressed, I began to learn how to steal nearly every inbounds pass the opposing team would make. I began winning game by obscene scores. 164-11. 171-8. 194-6.

That's when I decided that I would try and completely shut out an opposing team. I laced up my sneakers as Schrempf and Kemp and I went to work against the Sacramento Kings, the patsies from California. Using the unlimited turbo that I maintained through all of my "on fire" stages, I staked a 38-0 first lead. That lead expanded to 79-0 at halftime. By my count, Mitch Richmond had 39 turnovers. I was a machine. Kemp had 64 points on 32 dunks. It was a glorious span in my life. At the buzzer of the third quarter, Schrempf swiped the ball -- his 44th steal of the night -- and drilled a three-pointer from the corner to make it 117-0. Perfection was within my grasp.

At this point, I decided to take the air out of the ball. After I would retain possession, I used the entire shot clock before taking my own shot. With 38 seconds left, I did a front-flip dunk by Kemp that pushed my lead 132-0. I rose from my couch in anticipation.

On the Kings' next possession, Kemp dove for the steal on the inbounds pass and missed. I switched to Schrempf who floated back on defense. Then, in the blink of an eye, Richmond fired a bullet pass cross-court, and Wayman fucking Tisdale hit a short floater from the paint. With 34 seconds left, the score was 132-2 and my hope for a perfect game was gone. Done. I fired my controller into the television, kicked my SNES across the floor and stormed out of the cabin, driving 74 miles to shoot a few shotgun blasts at my next-door neighbor's dog.

And because of that, it felt good to me to see Bill Belichick run off the field before the game was officially over last night. Everyone knows he's a cold-hearted dick, but seeing him abandon his team while they were still on the field -- there couldn't have been a more perfect ending to the season. As much as I loved them, Kemp and Schrempf were only digital renderings of actual people. Wes Welker is a real person. And surely, his Hobbit-like blue eyes misted as he watched his coach abandon his team on the field.

If Tom Coughlin had any stones, he would have tried to score another touchdown when the Patriots only had about seven defenders on the field, just to to run up the score. I don't think anyone would have blamed him.

I certainly wouldn't have. I was too busy lighting Wayman Tisdale's latest jazz album on fire.