Nine Reasons Why That Was a Great Super Bowl

Here are nine reasons why yesterday's was an exceptionally great Super Bowl:

1) The first score of the game was a safety, but not your typical safety. This time it was an intentional grounding call that came on the longest intentional grounding pass I can ever remember seeing. Some dude in Vegas bet a thousand bucks the first score would be a safety and won $50-grand before his seat got warm.

3) Motley Crue's KIA commercial: Adriana Lima, Chuck Lidell, and the Crue. What more do you need?

4) Despite being completely out-played for almost the entire 1st half, the Patriots clawed their way back and scored a game-leading touchdown with 8-seconds left in the half.

4) Madonna and her cast of thousands killed it.

5) Clint Eastwood does the voice-over on a Chrysler commercial that gets the whole country buzzing and, despite its overwhelmingly inspirational message, still exposes the deep political divisions that split our nation. Good Lord people, we can't even agree on a positive message about America?

6) The Samsung commercial featuring Justin Hawkins from The Darkness.

7) Mario Manningham makes what is arguably the best catch I've ever seen in the Super Bowl. Surely it was as good as any Lynn Swan ever made, although the one by Santonio Holmes is probably still the best I've ever seen.

8) There was a concession touchdown with under a minute left. [BTW: I heard Ahmad Bradshaw interviewed about this play. He said no one discussed not scoring, during the timeout or in the huddle. Bradshaw said when Eli Manning handed off the ball he saw the Patriots were going to allow the touchdown and yelled, "Don't score!"]

9) Suspicions are that the Giants had 12 men on the field on purpose for Tom Brady's first Hail Mary, as the penalty ate a precious 11 seconds off the clock that the Pats never got back.

What a great game.