Giants Win Super Bowl In "Peyton's Place"

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThe New York Giants and Eli Manning are now 2-0 in Super Bowls against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, winning the 46th edition at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis (dubbed The House That Peyton Manning Built) 21-17.

The Giants weren't supposed to be here, having had a mediocre 9-7 season resulting in just barely winning the NFC East title.  But then they ran the table in the playoffs, beating Atlanta, Green Bay and San Francisco to win the conference.  The Patriots had a slightly better season, finishing 13-3 to win the AFC East.  They rolled past Denver in the playoffs, and would have lost the AFC championship to Baltimore had the Ravens made the last-second field goal.

The winning score came on what will forever be remembered as the "reluctant touchdown".  See, the Giants wanted Ahmad Bradshaw to stop just short of the goal line after Manning drove over eighty yards with the team trailing by two, so they could waste more clock and kick the winning field goal with almost no time left.  Bradshaw scored six anyway, the two-point conversion failed, and Brady got his chance to be the hero with under a minute left.  It didn't work.  Brady heaved a 50-yard pass into the end zone that fell incomplete.  Giants win.

For Eli Manning, who won the Super Bowl MVP, he's now one up on brother Peyton in winning the Big Game (they've won three between them).  But who knows if Peyton will get another chance?  He hadn't played all season because of a neck injury, and his Indianapolis Colts tanked without him.  Now Colts management is planning to draft for Peyton's eventual replacement, quarterback Andrew Luck of Stanford.

For Tom Brady and his coach Bill Belichick, they have won three Super Bowls together in the last decade and have lost the last two.  Their legacy is secure, even if their methods have not endeared them to folks outside the New England area.  Or the fact that Brady is married to a supermodel.

As for other aspects of the modern-day Super Bowl that make it as much a cultural event as it does a football game:  Madonna, the once-daring chanteuse now considered safe as milk by the NFL, was this year's halftime show headliner.  In spite of that, she put on a great show and had no need for guest stars Nicki Minaj and Cee Lo Green (who was probably there to remind one and all that "The Voice" follows the football game on NBC).  The Material Woman especially didn't need M.I.A giving the Unholy Finger to a worldwide TV audience, but there it was.  Whatever M.I.A.'s intent was, she certainly succeeded in making a name for herself.  This is just a warmup for Madonna's concert tour, which means she'll be taking a break from directing movies and dissing Lady Gaga for being too much like her.

The commercials?  The bullets, please.

• NBC promoted the heck out of "The Voice" (an "American Idol" ripoff) and "Smash", which is really "Glee" on Broadway.  They don't have much to offer other than that.
• The most depressing ad has to be the one for Chevy Trucks, in which they somehow survived the Mayan Apocalypse and Ford trucks didn't.  Don't even go there, General Motors.  If you ever find yourself cash-strapped again . . .
• Budweiser's ad celebrates the end of Prohibition.  Um, you might want to explain to younger viewers (over 21, of course) what Prohibition was about, if Ken Burns didn't already do that with his recent PBS special.
• More ads for movies featuring comic book heroes and mass destruction.  The kind you won't see nominated for awards.
• Clint Eastwood giving the nation a pep talk in his "halftime for America" ad for Chrysler.  Thanks, Clint.
• The only ad that was worth anything was the one for Pepsi, with Elton John as a king and Melanie Amaro as a commoner belting out "Respect".   For those of you who don't watch "The X-Factor" (which Pepsi sponsors), Amaro won the show's big prize.  Now we hear that Simon Cowell has cleaned house, dropping fellow judges Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger, as well as the guy who hosted the show.  His name escapes me.
• KARE, the local NBC affiliate, weighed in with an ad featuring their news anchors putting on their "game faces", with the help of former Minnesota Viking John Randle.  They all looked like raccoons.  Or was the Lone Ranger missing a mask, kemosabe?  Now, if they only put this much effort into their newscasts . . .

All in all, this was one Super Bowl that was better as a football game than a TV show.