The fans who call themselves Who Dat Nation were celebrating the triumph of New Orleans here Sunday night -- of a city, not just a team. Of a people, not just players.
Finally, it's here! After all the buildup and debate, the most anticipated event of the year is about to actually happen. Battle lines are drawn. Everyone has chosen a side. And you know that no matter how it plays out, this is what everyone will be talking about tomorrow.
Smirk handicaps Saturday's Pro Football Hall of Fame vote among 17 finalists, with the announcement to take place, as always, in the Bob Kuechenberg Disappointment Room:
It is foreboding what the Saints confront. The Colts are favored to win Sunday's football game down here for logical reasons.
The Colts may seriously be in trouble for Sunday's game, at least to the omen-minded (like Smirk) who attended Thursday's pregame and halftime show news conferences at the Super Bowl's Broward County Convention Center media HQ.
We had the right Super Bowl matchup coming out of the NFC and AFC championship games, but missed by a half-point, going 2-0 against the spread as well when the Saints didn't quite cover. Umm, I think this is where I am required by law to admit and remind that my preseason Super Bowl pick was Patriots over Falcons.
The Super Bowl civic bet, long the fodder of publicity-seeking politicians, has gone upscale. Ordinarily, it would be New Orleans and Indianapolis mayors betting gumbo and crawfish against [note to self: see if Indy has any cuisine besides Taco Bells].
Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles is offering a luxury Super Bowl package under the banner: ``Don't Tailgate. Tail-GREAT -- Trump Style!''
Star quarterback Drew Brees strode through Dolphins headquarters in Davie and into the large auditorium where the team's major announcements are made, taking his place behind a lectern as a roomful of TV cameras and media waited.
What a glorious week to be nude. Particularly if you are young, female and accomplished at pole-dancing.
Welcome to the historic fifth year of ``Super Bowl With a Smirk,'' whose purpose is to gently tweak the self-serious NFL and the gravitas of its Super Bowl in the manner of a whoopee cushion in church.
Who Dat? ``We Dat,'' says the big, bad NFL. ``We all Dat!''
King Sport, in a move that might be legally prudent but is public-relations quicksand, has sent cease-and-desist letters and threatened suits against New Orleans companies selling T-shirts that bear the city's and Saints fans' ubiquitous and beloved ``Who Dat'' catch-phrase.
The Pro Bowl stinks.
The NFL needs to solve it, or scrap it. It used to be merely seriously flawed back when they held it in Honolulu the week after the Super Bowl and its biggest problems were: star players routinely bowing out because of ``injuries'' such as hangnails or the sniffles, and being such an anticlimactic afterthought that nobody, neither fans nor players, really cared.
NEW ORLEANS -- The calendar says Mardi Gras is three weeks away. Not anymore. It started here in the Superdome on a magic night that helped erase 43 years of franchise disappointment and lift a city that deserved the joy finally savored.
Advisory to Pro Bowl players scheduled to be in Miami for next Sunday's all-star game: exclude yourself now on account of ``injury,'' if you have not already. Time is running short. No doctor's note is required. A cuticle trimmed too short in a bad manicure will do. Also, a moderate headache.
Drew Brees said this week, ``There is no fan base that deserves a championship more than New Orleans.'' Hmm. Except Minnesota's, maybe?
Nailed the toughest pick last week with Vikings over Cowboys. Thought Cardinals and Ravens would lose but more respectably. Didn't see the Jets' win coming; must have forgotten about that strange something in the Chargers' DNA that foments January collapses. Thanks, Norval! Fast fact: San Diego's Norv Turner is the only coach in NFL history who has at least 90 victories and a losing (94-102) career record.
Any Dolfan suffering not to be partaking of this NFL playoff ride knows the overriding theme of this past Miami season was the absence of big-play receivers, with poor Chad Henne operating with fewer weapons than the Swiss army. The season's singular snapshot was of Ted Ginn Jr. desperately avoiding contact after a short catch, dashing for the sanctum of the sideline as if he feared the entire field were about to collapse in a massive sinkhole.
The NFL's final four teams dueling to reach the dueling to reach the
Miami Super Bowl are a dream quartet for the league and television. Commissioner Roger Goodell and the suits at CBS and FOX couldn't have
schemed it any better. For the Dolphins, hosting the Super Bowl but far from it, the surviving teams offer a daunting reminder of what excellence looks like … but also
a bit of hope.
We'll get to that hope in a minute. (Wednesday you'll have waited 25 years exactly since Miami last played in a Super Bowl; can't you wait another minute?)
Tiger Woods, the gift that keeps on giving.
Just when you think the scandal is subsiding -- when the number of declared concubines has topped out at 14, the unfounded child-abuse rumor has come and gone and the allegation of Ecstasy pills has flared and petered out -- a brand new shaft of uncomfortable light shines upon sports' most famous philanderer and former most private superstar.
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