Brady On Goodell Clara

Football Betting Lines

"I'm a big believer the game is played in all elements," Goodell said. "It's a great part of our history. There's another side that believes when you get to the Super Bowl, the elements shouldn't play a part."

 

Testing for human growth hormone, which the union agreed to in the new CBA, could begin this offseason. It was expected to start during the 2011 season, but the union balked at the testing process.

 

There wasn't much talk about the sometimes acrimonious labor issues from the summer, but it was brought to the commissioner's attention that the teams of two of the men who played such a big role in the outcome -- Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Giants co-owner John Mara -- were in the Super Bowl.

 

Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It's not every Super Bowl where the team with the league's worst record gets as much attention as the two that will be competing for the NFL's most cherished piece of sterling silver. Or when Chad Ochocinco, at long last making it to the ultimate platform to hold court with his trademark flamboyance, offers no material of interest...and no one would even care if he did?

 

This may be officially known as Super Bowl XLVI, but a more appropriate title for this latest renewal of football's grandest game would be Manning XXIV/VII -- as in 24/7.

 

As evidenced by the endless bombardment of blue No. 18 jerseys adorning the walkways, it would take any visitor but an instant to recognize that Indianapolis is undeniably Peyton Manning's town. And the legendary quarterback's running tit-for-tat with owner Jim Irsay over his future with the franchise he almost single-handedly put back on the NFL map isn't merely an interesting sidebar to Sunday's showdown between Brady's Patriots and the New York Giants -- it's THE story.

 

And when the twisting soap opera between Manning and Irsay is in need of an interlude, the focus shifts to the member of the league's first family of signal-callers who'll actually be in uniform for the contest and what it means to his burgeoning legacy.

 

It could be that Brady is simply taken for granted due to his sustained level of excellence, or maybe it's because it seems more like an eternity than the seven years that have passed since the Patriots last hoisted the championship hardware. And the fact that he's been outshined by Eli Manning two straight times in head-to-head bouts and is coming off an admittedly ho-hum performance in the AFC title game probably has had some bearing on that public perception.

 

And that's precisely why Sunday's game is as much about restoring a reputation that should in no way be tainted by the outcome of those two previous encounters as it is to Eli Manning's standing in the historical hierarchy. A Patriots victory does more than simply push Brady past boyhood idol Joe Montana for the most postseason wins by a quarterback in NFL history and make the certain Hall of Famer one of only three triggermen to earn four Super Bowl rings (along with Montana and Terry Bradshaw) -- it gives an unquestioned icon a deserved place back in the spotlight for a greatness that's been suddenly overlooked.

comments

---

•    Honestly I been through a lot in my 19 years of living. And it makes me who I am today #KJD

  ---

•    house party ruined by someone talking to me all night about production. had to leave. i do like talking about other topics, such as oasis

  ---

•    Urrghh! I've not been up this early on a Saturday for years.

  ---

•    Hoy estoy super nervioso... estoy excitadoooooo!!

  ---

•    I won't give you the title if you don't know how to be it

  ---

•    Considering getting a Tom Brady tattoo sometime in the future if he wins Sunday #AmericanHero

  ---

---