Re: The Super Bowl Thread
 

A bit too scrappy for me - too many mistakes. But the Denver defense was amazingly good. I had thought Carolina's Offense would have been too strong, but it was the Denver Defense wot won it hands down. (I didn't watch the ads!)

Re: The Super Bowl Thread
 

Newton should have jumped on that ball, if not for that they would have stood a chance. If I was a real sceptic I'd be thinking fix.

Re: The Super Bowl Thread
 

In other news, the Ireland-Wales game was a great watch, if not an absolute classic game. Neither side prepared to settle for a draw in the closing minutes, going at it hammer and tongs but with a remarkably low penalty-count around the breakdown. Even the ITV commentary team didn't spoil it too much; the feed worked very well via mediahint, as did the BBC stream for the England Scotland game on Saturday (which, while a good result for a rebuilding England team, wasn't exactly an earth-shattering performance from either side).

I missed the Superbowl, but caught highlights late yesterday evening. Impressed with the Denver defense, half a dozen quarterback sackings is pretty good going, in my limited understanding. Limiting Carolina, the league's leading offensive line, to their lowest score of the season in the Championship game is quite the achievement.

Re: The Super Bowl Thread
 

I thought you'd be posting the Charlee Heinz one ?!!

The PETA/vegan one seemed pretty risqué for American TV.

Re: The Super Bowl Thread
 

Carolina certainly didn't have the top OL, did they actually have the top offense?

SCO-ENG looked less scary than I had feared. Either the Scots are getting better (they did win the U20 on Friday) or England ain't challenging this year.

Re: The Super Bowl Thread
 

I know nothing about American football - that was just something I thought I'd heard (or quite possibly misheard) on the radio. I gathered they'd scored lots of points all through the season, then had their offense closed down (note how I've grudgingly adopted the Murcan spelling of offense in this context...)

England are in a bit of a state of flux this season, I suspect. I doubt they'll challenge for the title. New management, a new captain, a bit of a regime change in the middle ranks of off-field staff too by all accounts. They did okay on Saturday against a Scotland team that performed unexpectedly well in the World Cup and so is probably still on its way down from that high point. Scotland should comfortably avoid the wooden spoon (they're miles better than when they were vying with Italy for bottom spot a few years ago) but I suspect it'll be Ireland or Wales for the top of the tree. France had massive holes against Italy; they're rebuilding from a standing start even moreso than England, and will struggle against the discipline that both Ireland and Wales showed in their game. Italy flattered against France but won't be able to perform like that against a more organized defence (proper spelling again...)

Re: The Super Bowl Thread
 

I'm a total NFL geek, have been for ~30 years. I did jape the guys in the pub- when I was doing pretty well in the pickem- by telling them I was picking by team names, so a panther would kill a ram etc. But they worked me out :-)

So the lines is basically the forwards, they got totally owned by Denver, never allowing the offense to settle and score. I've never seen a pocket crushed that quickly whilst maintaining containment so Cam Newton couldn't improvise and scramble. It was pretty awesome; I think actually better than the 1985 Beras.

Re: The Super Bowl Thread
 

I got too tired when posting those and fell asleep..lol

Re: The Super Bowl Thread
 

Not so sure about Scotland. If they are on their way down, then Italy are a real threat. They may have been above themselves against France but they do pull out some good performances.

They lost to Scotland last year but ran Wales and Ireland close on the same tour and won in Scotland in last year's 6N.

The problem with the 6N is that so much can depend on who has home advantage and Italy have been turning over the Scots with some consistency, especially at home, where they play them this time.

Scotland's best chance of avoiding the wooden spoon was catching England when they're down and yet to improve. They missed it.