SuperShotz

By TOM JONES, Times Staff Writer
Published January 28, 2008

The longest days

With the Patriots coming in as nearly two-touchdown favorites, this has the potential to be one of the most lopsided Super Bowls ever. A look at the five most lopsided Super Bowls of all time:

1. Super Bowl XXIV - 49ers 55, Broncos 10

The 49ers scored on six of their first eight drives, racked up 461 yards of offense and had the ball nearly 40 minutes.

2. Super Bowl XX - Bears 46, Patriots 10

The Patriots had minus 19 yards in the first half and only 123 for the game.

3. Super Bowl XXVII - Cowboys 52, Bills 17

Could've been 59-17 if a showboating Leon Lett hadn't had a touchdown wiped out by hustling Don Beebe.

4. Super Bowl XXII - Redskins 42, Broncos 10

Redskins posted a then-record 602 yards of offense in scoring 42 unanswered after falling behind 10-0.

5. Super Bowl XVIII -Raiders 38, Redskins 9

At Tampa Stadium. Highlight of the game was the dazzling 74-yard touchdown run by the Raiders' Marcus Allen.

1972 Dolphins story of the day

So we all keep hearing stories about how the 1972 Dolphins - still the only team to go through an NFL season, including playoffs, unbeaten and untied - celebrate whenever the last undefeated team in the NFL loses. They clink champagne glasses, toast the football gods and so forth. Not true, says Jim Kiick, a running back on the 1972 Dolphins team.

"No. 1, I prefer Jack Daniel's. I don't like champagne," Kiick said. "We don't sit around waiting with a bottle of champagne, waiting for that last team to lose a game. What we are celebrating is our accomplishment, something we're proud of."

Interesting number of the day

0 There has never been a punt returnedfor a touchdown in Super Bowl history.

Quote of the day

"If they win the Super Bowl and go 19-0, I have to think in my mind that he has to be considered the best coach of all time."

- Former NFL coach Mike Ditka, talking about the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick on ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown

What they're saying

It is now a great, great team, reaching for perfection, for a fourth championship in seven years. Which makes them the team we love to hate. Cinderella Men no more. Bill Belichick is a great, great coach, so great he built a culture where even Randy Moss could flourish. Who has become the bully who takes sadistic delight in running up the score when he can. Who got caught cheating.

This time, at this Super Bowl, they will be the ones playing America's team.

The Super Bowl XLII Giants are, in so many ways, the Super Bowl XXXVI Patriots: Against-all-odds dreamers who never stopped believing.

Because everybody loves the underdog, everybody except those misguided souls who harbor an anti-New York bias, an ESPN poll this week tallied 59 percent of the country rooting for the Giants.

Steve Serby, New York Post

A lot of people are going to work very hard ... to turn Super Bowl XLII into yet another exercise in which pint-sized, self-conscious Boston dares to step into the ring with powerful, glitzy New York.

Somebody will truck out the old story about the Red Sox selling Babe to the Yankees. It will be noted that New York gets the smashmouth, blockbuster Broadway shows, while Boston must settle for tryouts and national tours. New York's superiority in deli, pizza and Irish bars will be trumpeted.

But while it's true Boston sports fans used to be jumping up and down and hollering, "Pick me! Pick me!" whenever they were in the same classroom with their peers from New York, a change in centuries brought about a change in attitude.

Boston sports fans just don't give a d---what New Yorkers think anymore.

Steve Buckley, Boston Herald

[Last modified January 27, 2008, 21:07:03]