Ad Bowl 2010: The Super Bowl Commercial Champions

So the Super Bowl has come and gone, all the pageantry and glitz and glory and fury that entails. But what hasn't come and gone is the most important part of this or any Super Bowl: the commercials. The game may be over, but the advertisements will still be here long after Peyton Manning's tears have all been collected and used to transform orphans into heroic, football-playing centaurs. 

Now, first off, I have to say this: it was an historically bad year for Super Bowl commercials. Seriously. Just awful. I'll put it in automobile terms. The usual Super Bowl advert lineup is the cream of the crop, the very best advertisements money can buy. Creative. Funny. Memorable. There are hits and there are misses, of course, but overall, you get the flagship ads for most companies in any given year. The Super Bowl commercial lineup is a Cadillac, synonymous with the apex of the field. 

This year's commercial lineup was an '82 Pinto with a milk crate driver's seat. 

Still, there were a few good ones, ads which managed to rise above the sea of mediocrity and make an impact. Here's my own list of the five best this year. 

Ten Things You Should Know About the Super Bowl

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Okay, so my prediction maybe wasn't particularly accurate. Turns out I didn't give the Saints' secondary enough credit. Now, in my defense, they didn't stop Peyton Manning and the Colts, but they did slow them down and make one very, very big play. 
Unfortunately for me, I not only drew all my money out of the bank to lay down on the Colts' side, I went and pawned all my furniture, half my clothes, and took out a second mortgage on my house to try and maximize my winnings. Sigh. There's two hundred bucks I'll never see again. 

So what did we learn from the Super Bowl this year? Well, I'll tell you, and it won't take long, either. 

Lane Kiffin Loves Thirteen Year Olds

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See? This is what happens when you let thirteen year olds make decisions about their futures.
Sorry. I know that title isn't really fair to Lane Kiffin, and if I ever meet him, I will be sure to apologise properly. That being said, Kiffin has once again made headlines in one of the most bizarre ways possible: he offered a scholarship to a thirteen-year-old kid quarterback from Delaware

No part of that statement should exist. Yet somehow, it still does. (Delaware? Really?) 

The kid in question is David Sills, a quarterback who attends Bear Mountain Christian Academy in Bear, Delaware. He's apparently pretty good, and travels to California every year to work with a quarterback guru by the name of Steve Clarkson. Clarkson has coached a couple USC quarterbacks in the past; both Matt Leinhart and current USC QB Matt Barkley are pupils of his. 

So sure. It's pretty obvious the kid wants to be a quarterback. Then again, at thirteen I wanted to race hover cars for a living. So, you know, maybe committing to something at thirteen isn't such a good idea. 

The Super Bowl Prediction to End All Super Bowl Predictions

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I want you to imagine this man shouting everything in this column at you. No, it doesn't make the analysis any better. It is, however, hilarious.
So apparently there's some sort of football game happening today. Have you heard about this thing? 

Now, I'm sure you've all heard more analysis than you care to hear about the Super Bowl. I'm sure you've had more than enough predictions to last you a lifetime. After all, every single sportswriter and media personality in the country has covered it from every imaginable angle, over and over and over again. 

Well I may not be a sportswriter, and I may not have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but, um, wait. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. The Super Bowl. Sure, you've heard the best analysis and predictions money can buy. But hey, what else am I going to talk about? 

The Blues' Best Win of the Year?

The Blues and their new head coach, Davis "Bring The" Payne got a little bit of revenge last night on the Chicago Blackhawks
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A month ago, when Payne took over as interim head coach of the Blues, replacing Andy Murray, his first game was against the Blackhawks, on home ice. 

It did not go well. 

The Blackhawks absolutely destroyed the Blues that night, 6-3, hanging a rather prominent lantern on what had been - and, to a degree, continues to be - the Blues' biggest bugaboo this season. The Blues' problems winning games at Scottrade Center have been well-documented, if not particularly well understood. Their dismantling at the hands of Chicago was just another in a long line of setbacks at home. 

Well, it may not have been a blowout, and they may not have put up a half-dozen, and come to think of it, it wasn't at home, but the Blues still got the win last night over the Blackhawks, who continue to look like the class of the NHL this season. 

The Michael Vick Experience: Coming to a TV Near You!

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If you've ever wondered what, exactly, makes a man like Michael Vick tick, today is your lucky day. 

Tonight, Black Entertainment Television will air the first of a ten-part documentary series about the embattled quarterback. It will focus on his fall from grace, his time in prison, and his road back to some measure of respectability. (Well, maybe not respectability, exactly, but a life in which he's free to ply his trade without constant controversy.) 

Vick himself says of the show, "I'm on a mission to get everything back - not the money and the fame, but to restore my family's good name." Noble words, certainly, but I wonder if that's really an achievable goal at this point. 

Roger Federer or: Why Sleep is Useless In the Face of Greatness

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Do you know, I actually got up out of bed to watch the Australian Open men's final? Yup, 2:30 in the morning, and I'm sitting there on my sofa, blinking owlishly at the television and trying to wake up enough to follow a tennis match. 

So why, you ask, would I get out of bed in the middle of the night to watch tennis? Well, that's an excellent question. I got out of bed in the middle of the night to watch tennis because Roger Federer was playing, and when Roger Federer is playing, things like waking up in the middle of the night are perfectly justified. 

The Top 7 Sports Show Themes

Have you not seen the YouTube video of John Tesh performing "Roundball Rock," AKA the "NBA on NBC" theme song, live at Red Rocks?

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Watch the YouTube video here.
On said video the Teshster -- we've been known to give away *free* tickets to Tesh in concert -- plays the original answering machine recording he left himself when he was originally thinking of the tune. It's a funky rendition to say the least.

Why do we bring this up? Because it's clearly one of the best sports theme songs ever written. And "Roundball Rock," along with six other songs, is included in this Friday link-out to InsideSTL, who published this list.

Via Inside STL.

A Black Eye for Steven Jackson

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The Rams certainly didn't need this. 

Steven Jackson has been accused of beating his former girlfriend, one Supriya Harris, when she was nine months pregnant. That's right. Nine months pregnant. As in, ready to pop any day pregnant. 

So, big strong football player, tossing his girlfriend around when she's less than two weeks away from giving birth. Apparently enraged enough his nephew had to intercede and stop the beating said big strong football player was putting on the woman. Not a particularly pleasant image, is it? 

No, this the Rams most definitely did not need. 

Rich Hill Bends Into Town

So apparently the plan from here on out for the Cardinals is the proverbial wall covered in feces. As in, see what sticks and then rosterfy them sumbitches. 
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A comment on the state of Hill's shoulder?
The Cards reached a deal yesterday with Rich Hill, former Baltimore Oriole and Chicago Cub. (Boooo!) Hill gets an invite to spring training, where he will try to figure out just what went wrong in a once-promising career. 

I promise I won't make even a single joke about whether or not he can play center field. 

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