Barry Switzer has a saying for moments like these -- when he can wake up in the morning with no plans and by mid-afternoon, be in his Mercedes SL550 driving up Interstate 35 to Oklahoma City to hop on a private jet to Las Vegas.
ALBANY, N.Y. -- On the first morning of the first day of their first training camp as defending Super Bowl champions in 17 years, the New York Giants seized upon a familiar and yet strangely incongruous role for themselves: That of an disrespected underdog, determined to prove the doubters wrong.
With the start of all the training camps and actual football games coming soon to our televisions, I feel like an excited kid on Christmas morning. Seeing as how it is the 25th of the month, I thought I'd play Santa Claus and give each team a little present before the start of the season.
Bill Belichick's legacy cracked apart last year like the lobster claws at a Gillette Stadium tailgate.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Super Bowl hero David Tyree was placed on the physically unable to perform list by the New York Giants on Thursday because of lingering problems recovering from surgery on his right knee.
Usually I load up my first wailbag with a lot of self-serving stuff about the vacation, keyed on my return home from same. But this time the old letterbox was fairly bulging with so much stuff about my timid little prediction of the Vikings to win Supe XLIII, all sent to me in such a lighthearted spirit of good fellowship, that I simply had to address it now before I forget what these blokes had written.
Last year, I locked in my Super Bowl pick early and felt very good about the choice. For once, I wasn't trying to do a roster breakdown or getting myself all tied up in strengths and weaknesses. I was looking for a team with a chip on its shoulder, one that would be coming into the season with something to prove, a hungry team, nasty, etc.
Jason Taylor might be out of the Dancing With the Stars contest, but thoughts of Taylor are dancing in the heads of a lot of e-mailers this week.
It was a play that coach Bill Walsh talked about all week before a 1986 playoff game. Catch a quick slant, make New York Giants defensive back Herbie Welch miss the tackle and the end zone is wide open.
I normally hate writing about labor and things like looming strikes. You hate reading about that stuff. But I'm going to write about it here today, and I will make this commitment to you: I won't do it again, at least not at the top of the column, until something really significant occurs that you need to know about.
Barry Switzer has a saying for moments like these -- when he can wake up in the morning with no plans and by mid-afternoon, be in his Mercedes SL550 driving up Interstate 35 to Oklahoma City to hop on a private jet to Las Vegas.
ALBANY, N.Y. -- On the first morning of the first day of their first training camp as defending Super Bowl champions in 17 years, the New York Giants seized upon a familiar and yet strangely incongruous role for themselves: That of an disrespected underdog, determined to prove the doubters wrong.
With the start of all the training camps and actual football games coming soon to our televisions, I feel like an excited kid on Christmas morning. Seeing as how it is the 25th of the month, I thought I'd play Santa Claus and give each team a little present before the start of the season.
Bill Belichick's legacy cracked apart last year like the lobster claws at a Gillette Stadium tailgate.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Super Bowl hero David Tyree was placed on the physically unable to perform list by the New York Giants on Thursday because of lingering problems recovering from surgery on his right knee.
Usually I load up my first wailbag with a lot of self-serving stuff about the vacation, keyed on my return home from same. But this time the old letterbox was fairly bulging with so much stuff about my timid little prediction of the Vikings to win Supe XLIII, all sent to me in such a lighthearted spirit of good fellowship, that I simply had to address it now before I forget what these blokes had written.
Last year, I locked in my Super Bowl pick early and felt very good about the choice. For once, I wasn't trying to do a roster breakdown or getting myself all tied up in strengths and weaknesses. I was looking for a team with a chip on its shoulder, one that would be coming into the season with something to prove, a hungry team, nasty, etc.
Jason Taylor might be out of the Dancing With the Stars contest, but thoughts of Taylor are dancing in the heads of a lot of e-mailers this week.
It was a play that coach Bill Walsh talked about all week before a 1986 playoff game. Catch a quick slant, make New York Giants defensive back Herbie Welch miss the tackle and the end zone is wide open.
I normally hate writing about labor and things like looming strikes. You hate reading about that stuff. But I'm going to write about it here today, and I will make this commitment to you: I won't do it again, at least not at the top of the column, until something really significant occurs that you need to know about.
Ten years ago next month, the Indianapolis Colts selected quarterback Peyton Manning first overall in the NFL draft, bypassing Washington State quarterback Ryan Leaf and almost single-handedly changing the course of a franchise that had posted just two playoff seasons in the previous decade.
The good news is that one way or another, the end appears to be in sight.
MOST VIEWED 1. Brett Favre retires 2. Peter King on QB Derek Anderson re-signing with Browns 3. Don Banks on the NFL free-agent market
The complaint that won't die -- my quickie evaluation of Brett Favre's career, as something that could have been even greater. No rehash of the old ideas here, just an attempt to address the new complaints.
David Tyree's spectacular ball-to-helmet catch set up the New York Giants' victory at the Super Bowl earlier this month. But even more exciting for the wide receiver is the addition of twins to his family. On Feb. 20, the football star's wife, Leilah, gave birth to daughters Sophia and Hannah.
It's become an annual rite of passage for Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks: Hoist the Vince Lombardi trophy, declare your intentions to visit the House That Walt Disney Built, head directly to Madison Avenue.
The e-mail bag overfloweth, much of it concerning Spygate. We'll start with that, then a plug for the new NFL Films DVD on the Giants' Super Bowl win -- being released nationwide today -- because there are a few very interesting things in the DVD that taught me a few things I didn't know about the Giants' season and the Super Bowl.
The Miami Dolphins are very quietly setting themselves up to be an offseason power in the NFL. The waiving of quarterback Trent Green, wide receiver Marty Booker and offensive tackle L.J. Shelton this week added $9.9 million in savings to the 2008 salary-cap total, and helped boost the Dolphins' cap number from $29 million to $40 million.
Now that Washington's bizarrely conducted coaching search has concluded with perhaps the fastest promotion in the history of the NFL -- Jim Zorn went from newly hired Redskins offensive coordinator to head coach in a couple weeks -- the theme behind this year's crop of coaching hires is: The cleaner the better.
"As Mike Tyson would say, 'Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.' "
It wasn't so long ago that some believed this family would never win.
When you think about the 1985 Super Bowl-champion Chicago Bears, the image that immediately pops into your mind isn't Walter Payton carrying the football 22 times or Willie Gault's 129 receiving yards. It's not Reggie Phillips' 28-yard interception return for a touchdown and it's not even Jim McMahon thumbing his nose at Commissioner Pete Rozelle.
PHOENIX -- The Giants' Super Bowl win on Sunday night will rightfully take its place among the greatest upsets in NFL history. New York was just the fifth wild-card entry to win a Super Bowl, and the first from the NFC.
Those rare sports fans who think there aren't enough Mannings in commercials can take heart. Peyton's little brother Eli is likely about to be Madison Avenue's new go-to guy.
The New York Giants shatter New England's perfect season with a big, bad defense and an improbable comeback
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- You can almost hear a slight variation of Allen Iverson's famous "practice" speech when you hear about the ticket prices for the top Super Bowl parties.
PHOENIX -- After 18 seasons of covering the NFL, I've discovered that I can't get through Super Bowl week without the Jeff Feagles of the world.
PHOENIX -- Trying to predict the Pro Football Hall of Fame class is always difficult, but I don't recall a more difficult year in my decade and a half as one of the selectors. The reason: there are no gimmes in this group and there are varying degrees of support for many of the 17 candidates.
I have a chance to settle an old score, right an old wrong, find peace in my old age and apologize, in sideways fashion, to those whom I wronged so many years ago.
With all due respect to my friend and colleague Paul Zimmerman, the esteemed Dr. Z., the psychic guilt of having not picked Joe Namath and the Jets to beat the Colts in the Super Bowl 39 years ago is no reason to compound one's mistake by predicting a Giants upset of the Patriots in next week's Super Bowl, as he did for both SI.com and Sports Illustrated earlier this week.
PHOENIX -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as the circus known as Super Bowl XLII cranks to life ...
One week from Sunday, the titans of American advertising will take to the field and go head-to-head in an epic battle of marketing muscle to determine who will be the king of commercials.
"No one remembers who loses the Super Bowl."
Brett Favre and Eli Manning met for a private moment at midfield before Sunday's NFC Championship Game at the Lambeau Icebox, and the old lion leaned in to get close to the kid. You could only imagine what they were saying to each other -- something about enjoying the moment because you never know when another one will come, perhaps, or how odd it was for two sons of the South to be playing in one of the coldest games in history.
Reggie Wayne's mighty Colts lost at home. So did Terrell Owens' top-seeded Cowboys. Chad Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald, Brandon Marshall and Braylon Edwards didn't even get to the playoffs. Neither did Roddy White, Marques Colston or Torry Holt.
One of them had his name virtually turned into a punch line in recent years, and it was often said of him that as a head coach he made a heck of an offensive coordinator. The other one spent a good bit of the past two seasons playing the role of a piñata, taking blows from all directions while folks stood around and debated when he'd crack.
It doesn't seem quite possible, but the record is the record, and it's right there in black and white. Junior Seau is in a position this week that he hasn't been in for 12 long years: Preparing to take part in an NFL playoff game.
Our top 10 reasons why Thursday night's titanic Green Bay at Dallas game rates as must-see TV (the key stipulation being, of course, that you have access to the NFL Network) ...
Kelvin Hayden awoke in the middle of the night to the images that haunt defensive backs everywhere. They had already been consuming his mornings and afternoons. Now they were interrupting his dreams. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Randy Moss, Donte' Stallworth and Wes Welker, running patterns at the foot of his bed.
In the NFL, it is said that the most desperate team usually prevails, and what we saw here late Sunday afternoon was desperation of the most impressive kind.
He knew precious little about the New England Patriots. There were those three Super Bowl rings. There was the coach in the gray sweatshirt who seemed so imperious and distant. "He never smiled," says Adalius Thomas, a Pro Bowl linebacker who spent seven seasons with the Baltimore Ravens before reaching the open market last winter as an unrestricted free agent. There were the players, enemies whom he scarcely knew.
This story was originally published in the Feb. 14, 2005 issue of Sports Illustrated
Wide receiver Hines Ward suspects the New England Patriots may have had some type of inside information on the Pittsburgh Steelers before at least one of the teams' two AFC championship game matchups since the 2001 season.
This story was originally published in the February 7, 2001 issue of Sports Illustrated
This story was originally published in the Feb. 12, 2007 issue of Sports Illustrated.
This story was originally published in the Feb. 4, 1991 issue of Sports Illustrated.
This story was originally published in the Jan. 17, 1977 issue of Sports Illustrated.
A couple of years ago, I decided to buck the trend of making Super Bowl predictions on Labor Day, which everyone in our business does. I'll be the first person, I thought, to make a pair of Super Bowl predictions -- one in the spring and one after I've had a chance to visit 15 or 18 training camps in the summer to take the pulse of the contenders.
SI.com presents a listing of each existing franchise's best draft class in the last 30 years. The league has endured a few stages of evolution since '77 -- expansion, free agency, greater TV exposure, the salary cap -- but this exercise should reaffirm the notion that consistent championship contenders are always built through the draft. For the sake of brevity, we've limited the list to the productive players from a team's particular class.
For the first time in seven years, the Vince Lombardi Trophy resides today in the nation's heartland, where the Indianapolis Colts call home. It took the Colts 23 years to bring a Super Bowl championship to their relocated home, but less than a week after their coronation, there are already 31 other NFL teams plotting to dethrone them.
Ratings for Super Bowl XLI showed that more people watched the Indianapolis Colts' victory over the Chicago Bears than last year's game featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks.
MIAMI -- "So,'' I said to Peyton Manning as he walked out of Dolphin Stadium a few minutes after midnight this morning, "they can't say you can't do it anymore, can they?''
MIAMI -- Peyton Manning finally has his ring. So does Tony Dungy and the rest of the Colts, the NFL's winningest team since 1999. But with Super Bowl XLI in the books, the next logical question is whether Indianapolis can build on its big-game breakthrough and add to its trophy case next season?
MIAMI BEACH -- Jim Brown is sitting in the corner of a secluded VIP room in an exclusive area separated by a velvet rope on Wednesday night. As he sips drinks next to a fireplace, a couple of diminutive security guards, who are dwarfed by football players twice their size, are hopelessly trying to keep guests from coming inside.
Thanks to their dominant defense, spectacular season and over-the-top Super Bowl performance, the 1985 Chicago Bears are often ranked at or near the top of people's 'Greatest Teams of Alltime' lists.
Indianapolis? Chicago? Who cares? For many, the battle between Anheuser-Busch, FedEx and CareerBuilder for funniest commercial is what matters on Super Bowl Sunday.
Is it just me, or has Super Bowl week lacked a certain buzz thus far? It's been hard to get excited about Tank Johnson's gun collection, Peyton Manning's thumb, or Rex Grossman's passer rating. Where's Joey Porter when you need him?
MIAMI -- Oh to have had Jim Sorgi hooked up to an EKG monitor or blood pressure machine when Peyton Manning first ambled off the field shaking his right thumb, a look of real concern in his eyes as the AFC Championship Game wound down to its most crucial juncture.
With Super Bowl XLI approaching, Tony Dungy will garner more positive press than Barack Obama. Count on myriad gushy stories about Dungy's grace. Nonetheless, one description that will be elusive is Dungy as genius. Despite making history to highlight his brilliant career, Dungy still hasn't overcome the maddening tendency to overlook his football acumen.
More than 90 million people are expected to tune in this Sunday to watch the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears do battle on the gridiron in Super Bowl XLI.
Is a Super Bowl commercial worth it?
Chicago Bears fans, poor souls, must be asking themselves, why, oh why, should Lovie and the gang even bother showing up in Miami?
Is that all there was? Did the entire Bill Parcells in Dallas era add up to nothing more than a ho-hum 34-32 record and a pair of playoff losses in four years? Talk about much ado about very little. So much hype. So much hoopla. But a bit light on the fulfilled promise.
INDIANAPOLIS -- Musings, observations and hopefully the occasional insight on championship game-Sunday ...
Chicago Bear fans are no doubt thrilled their team is heading to Super Bowl XLI in Miami, but it's stock market bulls who had the biggest win on Sunday.
They talked about it on Monday -- the two old friends and potential opponents -- now that the Super Bowl is tantalizingly within reach. Well, at least Lovie Smith talked. Tony Dungy mostly listened. The Colts' always-composed head coach has been this close twice before and came away disappointed both times, so naturally he's hesitant to even let his mind linger on the possibility.
They talked about it again last week -- the two old friends and potential opponents -- now that the Super Bowl is in sight and tantalizingly within reach. Well, at least Lovie Smith talked. Tony Dungy mostly listened. The Colts' always-composed head coach has been this close twice before, and met with disappointment both times, so there's a natural hesitancy to even let his mind linger on the possibility.
Ever watch a lousy TV commercial and think that you could do a better job than the marketing agency who was probably paid a big fat fee?
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Tens of millions of Americans will watch the Super Bowl this Sunday. For many it's more important to see how the Burger King fares than how Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger does against the Seattle Seahawks.
For many, the suspense leading up to Super Bowl XL in Detroit on Feb. 5 has nothing to do with which teams will make it to the big game but which big corporations will be advertising during it.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Pigskin fans rejoice! The National Football League playoffs begin this weekend and Super Bowl XL is only a little more than a month away.
Why do they throw a crummy high school dance party in the middle of my big football game? I know the Super Bowl isn't the only game with a halftime show, but it's the one with all the hype.
Could New England fans be getting tired of winning?
Sunday's Super Bowl XXXVIII is expected to be a sales bonanza for retailers of consumer electronics and sports apparel, with an estimated 1.5 million TV sets sold for football's big day, according to an industry survey Monday.
Although advertising rates for a 30-second Super Bowl spot on CBS hit a record $2.3 million, companies don't see the price as the main obstacle to appearing on marketing's biggest stage.
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