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We’re closing in on two weeks since the Saints beat the Colts in the Super Bowl and my body is slowly adjusting to the next six months without football.

One of the things I keep reading in the days since what I thought was a pretty exciting game between two very good teams and two great quarterbacks is that the interception Peyton Manning threw on his way to the game-tying touchdown drive somehow cheapens his legacy as a star quarterback.

I’ll grant you, Manning has, at times, struggled in big games. But to say throwing a pick-six against New Orleans somehow detracts from him being one of the top quarterbacks of all-time is ridiculous.

First of all, this wasn’t an all-time great Colts team all season long. Sure, they were 14-0 before the coaches pulled the starters against New York. But Indianapolis won eight games by one score or less. Other than a four game stretch of dominance from their third game to their sixth game, when they won games by 21, 17, 22 and 36 points, the Colts generally played competitive games this year. This was a very, very good team, but any belief that this was a dominant bunch was misguided.

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Drew Brees, not Peyton Manning, displayed the poise and leadership of a Super Bowl champion Sunday night in Miami, leading his New Orleans Saints to their first Vince Lombardi trophy.

Brees completed 32 of 39 for 288 yards and two scores, winning the MVP trophy in the meantime.

His career is far from over and he’s got a lot more history to write in the years ahead. But I asked the question two weeks ago – will Drew Brees make the Hall of Fame? His last four seasons have certainly been trending in that direction.

Super Bowl performances like the show he put on tonight certainly won’t hurt his cause. Sure, it took Tracy Porter’s pick of Manning late in the game to seal the deal. And Sean Payton’s onside kick was a gutty call. But Brees’ performance was nearly flawless. My guess is he leads the Saints to many more playoff victories over the next few years as well.

If he does it’d be hard to keep him out of Canton in a decade, give or take a year or two.

Regular Zoneblitz commenter Tony Parslow dropped us a note last night, saying he heard a great discussion topic on ESPN–is Sunday’s match-up between Peyton Manning and Drew Brees the best quarterback matchup in Super Bowl history?

A few other matchups jump to my mind as possibilities–Montana vs. Marino in Super Bowl XIX, Montana vs. Elway in Super Bowl XXIV, and Elway vs. Favre in Super Bowl XXXII–but I’m not sure if any of those match-ups would have been considered those QBs facing each other in their prime.

And of course, my Super Bowl history really only dates back to the Montana vs. Ken Anderson game of Super Bowl XVI…so maybe some research is warranted:

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In news that will probably make fans in New York and Boston giddy, and only encourage the folks in Bristol to continue showing every conveivable Yankees-Red Sox matchup (even when more compelling games are on), the ratings for the Super Bowl dropped slightly this year, from a rating of 44.7 last year to 42.1 this year.  Each rating point represents 1,145,000 households.

The rating for the 2007 game was also a 42.1, and in 2006 it was a 42.2.  East coast fans will likely conclude that the drop in ratings was because neither team in the Super Bowl was from New York or Boston (despite the fact that no teams last year were either–the Giants are from New Jersey, and the Patriots are from Foxboro).

There are other plausible explanation, though–there may have been more fans who were unable to take time off from work, thanks to the economy.  And since it sounds like tickets were cheaper, and it was the first time for Arizona (and since Pittsburgh fans are so fanatical), it’s possible that more people made the pilgrimmage to Tampa to try to attend in person.

Or maybe a whole bunch of people were so sickened by the crap that NBC chose to air as its pregame show, that they turned the TV off in disgust and listened online or on radio.

Still, it was a lot of people watching (estimated at about 90 million), but we do wonder if a ratings drop (combined with the economy, and the fact that some companies finally started mocking the prices–see High Life with their 1 second spots) will impact the price for ads next year…lord knows if they drop by about $2,999, 925 or so, ZoneBlitz.com will be first in line for a 30-second spot…

**UPDATE** After further review, the numbers for this year’s Super Bowl were actually higher than last year’s–take THAT, East Coast Media Bias!

We posted a couple times earlier this season that the officiating in the National Football League has gotten pathetic.

That has been magnified here during the second half of the Super Bowl.
On the first Arizona drive of the second half, Kurt Warner was pressured on third down. The ball came out of his hand but his arm was clearly coming forward. The refs, during a conference, however, decided to call it a fumble instead, requiring Arizona to burn a challenge to get the correct call.

Instant replay can be a fantastic tool for officials, but not if they use it as a crutch – too often, refs are out of position or they question their calls. So they take the cop-out and make the challengeable call, even when there is little doubt to most observers that it’s the wrong call.
Then, later in the third quarter, Darnell Dockett was flagged for roughing the passer no a play in which Ben Roethlisberger had just barely gotten his pass away.

Later on the same drive safety Adrian Wilson was flagged for running over Steelers holder Mitch Berger on a field goal attempt – Wilson was off balance and couldn’t stop and, in the opinion of Zoneblitz, he didn’t hit Berger nearly hard enough to warrant a personal foul call. That was the third personal foul on that drive – two of the three were extremely questionable.

Finally, on a fourth quarter pass from Ben Roethlisberger to Hines Ward, Rod Hood stuck with the receiver and tore the ball out of his arms from behind before Ward could come down with the catch.
On several replays I failed not only to see a hold but also any premature contact that should have resulted in a penalty. But the refs called holding and the Steelers got another first down via penalty.

This is the Super Bowl. These officials are graded during the season and the crew with the best ratings supposedly get to call the big game. If this is the best crew the league has had I rest my case. There has been and there remains a major officiating problem in the league and it is harming the integrity of the game.