To help you sift through the massive amounts of Super Bowl coverage, we'll pick out each day's best stories. Today? The weather report from hell, Ted Thompson's revenge, and more.
1. All week long, we've been hearing various media complain about the terrible weather in Dallas, and it's all been pretty obnoxious. I mean, come on. You're at the Super Bowl! Go buy a coat and stop whining. But while that general concept remains unchanged, you have to admit, this sounds pretty terrible.
It's one thing to deal with bad weather. It's another thing to deal with bad weather when you were promised good weather. But it starts to become a totally different animal when Mother Nature just begins openly mocking us, screwing up everyone's plans, and turning the NFL's signature event into a complete mess of lines and cancellations. Then again, this is also a great example of what happens when Jerry Jones gets what he wants.
What we get? The exact opposite of the Walter Cronkite weather report in Good Morning Vietnam. "The weather out there is hot and s**tty, with continued hot and s**tty in the afternoon. Tomorrow a chance of continued crappy, with a pissy weather from front coming down from the North. Basically, it's hotter than a snake's in hell." ... Substitute "cold" for "hot" and you've got Dallas!
3. Okay, time to talk about how brilliant Ted Thompson is. Even though he won't take credit for any of this, he deserves a ton of praise for having the guts to tell Brett Favre to take a walk three years ago. Or, as Skip Bayless called it at the time, "Ted Thompson's running Brett Favre out of Green Bay was the biggest mistake by a GM in the history of the league." (via)
This week, he's been able to bask in the glow of his own decision-making. Check out the New York Times profile, the CBS Sports profile, or his top five moves as Packers GM. And really, take the story of Ted Thompson as a lesson for life: If you've pissed off Skip Bayless and Brett Favre, you're doing something very, very right.
4. Mike Tomlin is the best thing about the Pittsburgh Steelers, but the sources behind Elizabeth Merrill's excellent profile of the Steelers coach seem a little suspect:
"He's not a self-promoter, that's for sure," said Matt Kelchner, an old friend who recruited Tomlin to play at the College of William & Mary two decades ago. "He's always said to me, 'I just want to coach football … That's what my life is. I'm not interested in a lot of other malarkey.' That's just the way he is."
...Can you really picture him saying the word 'malarkey'?
5. Finally, I'll have my full Super Bowl preview up in a little bit, but until then, let's all just agree that the Super Bowl should be played in L.A. every year. End of story. Stop writing about it.