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Weekend winners
Area college hoops: Every SEC win, especially on the road, is a good one. So UT’s stout showing in Oklahoma deserves a visor tip. The Mocs remained hot, too, with a win over Furman on Saturday. UTC is second in the Southern Conference.
Patriots fans: Yeah, we’ll have more on the Super Bowl in a moment — a lot more — but let’s learn the lesson here and keep that “next dynasty” and “QB GOAT” chatter on the back burner for a hot minute, OK? Because know this: Patrick Mahomes will forever have this on his resumé just like TB12 will forever have 28-3 on his.
Thomas Detry: Winning for the first time on the PGA is life-changing. Doing it at the golf rock concert that is Phoenix is even sweeter.
Florida basketball: The best win of the season for anyone in college basketball came for the Gators on Saturday in Auburn. It was truly impressive, and Florida did it at less than full strength.
Weekend losers
Auburn hoops: That was dreadful. Worst game I’ve seen from Bruce, from Broome and from Baker-Mazara all season. Just stating facts, and not bailing on a team that assuredly has a 1-seed resumé and has Final Four-or-failure goals. As well as Florida played, AU shot 43/32/61 and allowed 48/40/83 in terms FG/3PT/FT percentages.
Eli apologists: C’mon people. Yes, Eli is a great dude, but saying, “Eli deserves to be in the Hall of Fame because he didn’t make an All-Pro team because of all the great QBs he played against” is completely nonsensical to me. And it was on an endless reel over the weekend. Every discussion about every name on HoF ballots should be, “Was there a point in his career you thought this guy was top-2-or-3 at his position?” If the answer is no — and Eli never was — then the HoF answer should be no, too.
Trump attending the Super Bowl: Why? To hear the applause? And at the cost of $40 million (reportedly) of taxpayer dollars for security and protocols, maybe Musk and the DOGE should examine that line item.
The commercials: Seems like a very down year for all things Super Bowl related in most ways. Unless, of course, you were wearing green.
Drake: When the entire country is waiting to hear a diss song about you — and the entire audience sings “A minor” in unison — well, that’s not going to be a fun Super Bowl party experience, you know?
Super talking points
The Super Bowl was a super blowout.
The 40-22 final was way closer than the feel of the game, which Philadelphia led 34-0 and 40-6 at various points in the second half.
And the takeaways start with the victors, because to the victors go the spoils.
First, who had a sweeter run from hot-seat HC spot in a primo Cadillac of a football roster, Philly’s Nick Sirianni or THE Ohio State’s Ryan Day?
Both were hearing “Can that bum” whispers before December — Sirianni for a litany of things, including yelling at fans from the sideline; Day for his inability to beat that school up North — and now each will get fat-daddy extensions. (Each also will lose valued coordinators, almost assuredly.)
How great is the Eagles roster, today and moving forward?
Great stat No. 1 — The Eagles are just the fourth team in the Super Bowl era, according to ESPN stats and info, to play for the title and have more than 111 starts in a season from players 25 or younger. The other three — 1981 49ers, 1993 Cowboys, 2022 Chiefs — went on to win multiple titles.
Look at the construction. A slew of great young defensive draft picks, including Jalen Carter, who was the menacing anchor that allowed the Philly defensive front to dominate the game. Great stat No. 2 — Philly had six sacks and knocked Mahomes down 10 times in his first 20 drop-backs as the Eagles seized control, but the Eagles blitzed exactly zero times all night. So they achieved every DC’s ultimate wish — creating pressure with four and dropping seven into coverage.
Offensively, Saquon Barkley is a bargain. Almost all the offensive starters are under contract for next season, too.
Plus, the Eagles project to have more than $24 million in cap space and only two of their top-20 or so players — DE Josh Sweat and All-Pro MLB Zach Baun — are free agents this offseason.
But like all narratives, the discussion of the Super Bowl champ starts at the victorious QB1.
Where do you slot Jalen Hurts after this performance?
Great stat No. 3 — Heard this morning that there are now three QB1s to win a natty and a Super Bowl as a starter. Hurts, Joe Montana and Joe Namath. Nuts, right?
He has arguably been better than Mahomes in each of their two Super Bowl confrontations.
Would you take Lamar or Hurts at this juncture of their careers?
Hurts or Josh Allen? Hurts or Joey Burrows?
Welcome to the elite circle of the top echelon for coaches and QB1s.
Now, go win it again. (And yes, the Eagles are high among the favorites to win it all this time next year. Let’s just hope Kendrick Lamar’s not invited to perform.)
This and that
› I thought the choreography of the halftime show was aces, and I know Kendrick Lamar is crushing right now after multiple Grammys and billions in streaming sales. But I thought his performance — other than the really cool cameo from Serena Williams — was blahtastict.
› As forgettable as the music was at halftime, the pregame music of “America the Beautiful” and the national anthem were great. And the Lady Gaga performance of “Take my Hand” with the surrounding crowd on Bourbon Street was arguably the best thing of my five-plus-hours of Fox viewing last night.
› OK, if you want to know, the two commercials that I thought were the best were the Glenn Powell “Goldilocks” commercial for Ram trucks and the Matt Damon-David Beckham commercial for Stella. The worst? That Dunkin’ commercial with the Afflecks and Bill Belichick and his 24-year-old girlfriend was dreadful.
› Man, the Dallas Mavericks dealt Luka for AD in large part because Luka could not stay healthy. Whether that was conditioning or bad luck, it has landed on AD, who was injured over the weekend and could miss up to a month.
› Aaron Rodgers’ time with the Jets is apparently over. Hey Falcons, you could spend a sizable chunk for a QB3, right?
› Speaking of Belichick’s girlfriend, she took a mighty swing at my favorite NFL team with a T-shirt this weekend that read “Atlanta Falcons Super 51 Champions.”
Today’s questions
Weekend winners or losers. Go, and they can be Super or non-Super selections.
As for the Big Game, who was the biggest winner Sunday?
— Jalen Hurts
— Nick Sirianni
— Eagles fans
— Tom Brady
— Other and specify
As for today, Feb. 10, let’s review:
On this day in 1942, Glenn Miller and his Orchestra were awarded the first ever solid-gold record for selling a million copies. The record was the “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.”
Spy, did you sing back-up vocals on the original?
Elizabeth Banks is 51 today. Did you know she makes $24 million a year (reportedly) to host the remake game show “Press Your Luck”?
Mark Spitz is 75 today.
Rushmore of swimmers. Go.