I planned on simply commenting on Thrax’s Super Bowl post, but my epic ramblings merit their own post. First I’d like to agree with him on the bogus “America’s Team” designation pushed upon us by the Powers That Be. It seems to me that it is usually the team with the most wins, the fewest dickheads, and the whitest, handsomest quarterback. Guess who’s turn it is? If New England didn’t have a super-intelligent jerk (Belicheck) and a recovering teamkiller (Moss), they would still be America’s Team hands-down. Regardless, the it is stupid – and an “America’s Team” seems to only be an NFL thing.

As for games being rigged by refs, that is almost impossible in the NFL (now the NBA, that’s another matter altogether). It sure did not have much direct influence on Pitt’s win – it was just poorly officiated for BOTH teams. James Harrison was held just about every single time he rushed the corners. Most of the penalties on AZ were very obvious – two stupid facemasking penalties, for example.

Pitt was outplayed in the second half, definitely. Luckily there are two halfs. You can’t expect to make that critical interception and not have it come back to haunt you. Otherwise, Warner was MVP – and that game-ending fumble should have at least been reviewed. As for Thrax’s subtle hinting that Pitt was the media’s darling to win, please let me point you to the experts on the three major sports web sites and who they picked:

ESPN.com Pitt 6, AZ 4

Foxsports Pitt 4, AZ 2

CNNSI AZ 6, Pit 4

Totals: Pit 14, AZ 12 – and look at the estimated scores. It doesn’t appear that anyone is fawning over Pitt, although they had the better record against the hardest regular-season schedule. Some consider it the hardest regular schedule of all-time. I actually thought AZ had a great chance, and if they had thrown more in the first half the results may have been different. But to say that the media and/or officials were rooting for Pittsburgh is just plain incorrect. Hell, I found myself even cheering for AZ to make it a good game.