PRE-SUPER BOWL UPDATE

Greetings, occasional readers! TPC has spent some time in sunny Miami, Florida this week, collecting bits of news and juicy gossip for our veritable tens of eager, anxious readers. Although we were unable to secure an actual press pass for media day (apparently our Associated Press accreditation papers got lost in the mail), we kept our ear to the figurative grindstone, and are here with some of this week's most pressing and engaging news stories. Enjoy.


NFL TO DEDICATE SUPER BOWL TO BARBARO, RENAME TROPHY
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced Wednesday that Super Bowl XLI will be held in memory of Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby-winning colt whose leg injury and subsequent struggle with laminitis resulted in his euthanization early this week. "I think we can all learn something from Barbaro's courageous and inspiring battle these past months," Goodell eulogized, before announcing that the Vince Lombardi trophy, customarily awarded to the winner of each year's Super Bowl, will be renamed the Barbaro trophy, in the horse's honor. "Additionally," Goodell continued, "Any players suffering injuries in Sunday's game will be immediately and indiscriminately euthanized on-field. It's what Barbaro would have wanted."


TANK JOHNSON OFFERED SCHOLARSHIP TO UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI
One Bears player making the most of his trip to Miami is defensive tackle Tank Johnson, who reportedly has been offered a full scholarship to the University of Miami, should he choose to return to college following the end of the football season. "Mr. Tank meets all of our criminal background requirements," explained University president Donna Shalala, "and would almost certainly be a mentor to some of our incoming freshmen, whose hopefully long and lucrative careers in fields such as larceny, narcotics smuggling, and armed robbery lay ahead of them."


PEYTON REHEARSING WITH STONE FOR UPCOMING "FICTIONAL" BIOPIC
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning this week admitted that the Super Bowl is not his only reason for making the trip to Miami. "I've been rehearsing with Oliver Stone for a movie we'll be making together this summer." Stone, the acclaimed director, apparently noticed Manning's acting abilities in his many television advertisements. "I could tell Peyton was a serious actor, the Cary Grant of faux-mustachioed cell phone salesmen, you might say," Stone remarked via conference call from his South Beach estate. "I couldn't wait to cast him in this film." The movie, sources say, is about the struggles of a quarterback shedding his father's loser reputation and his own big-game failures in the past to finally succeed on the game's largest stage, only to find out that even winning a Super Bowl, if you're Peyton Manning, won't get you laid.


DUNGY, SMITH FINALLY VALIDATE ROONEY RULE, FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT
On Super Bowl Sunday, Colts coach Tony Dungy and Bears coach Lovie Smith will become the first black coaches to coach in a Super Bowl, a validation of the NFL's "Rooney Rule," which requires owners to interview at least one black candidate during head coaching searches, and a landmark achievement in the ongoing struggle for civil rights. Said Smith, "Sunday's game will finally silence critics of the fourteenth amendment, and prove, once and for all, that African-Americans are capable of doing all the same things as white people. Except, obviously, country music. We'll leave that to you guys."


MANNING LEAVES TICKET AT WILL CALL FOR "SPECIAL FRIEND"
One of the more mysterious developments of the week leading up to the Super Bowl has been that of the strange ticket left at will call by Peyton Manning, the Colts quarterback. Sources are reporting that Peyton has left one ticket to Sunday's game at will call, under the name "Chenny Kesney." Sources have not been able to discern the identity behind the alias, and Manning has declined to comment on the story.


KANYE WEST: "DREW BREES DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE"
One week after the New Orleans Saints' defeat at the hands of the Chicago Bears in the NFC championship game, rapper Kanye West has caused another stir by suggesting that Saints quarterback Drew Brees lacks sympathy for the plight of African-Americans displaced by Hurricane Katrina. "The fact remains, Drew Brees doesn't care about black people," cried West. "Everyone knows how important the Saints are to New Orleans' recovery from Katrina. If Drew Brees cared at all about black people, he would've quit throwing to Marques Colston last weekend and gotten Reggie and Deuce more involved. Obviously, Brees cares more about his own statistics than he does about rebuilding New Orleans." West also decried the racist sympathies of the entire Saints' defense, for allowing that "White devil Rex Grossman" to score 39 points on them.


SUPER BOWL COMMITTEE TO DISCUSS SHORTENING GAME
The NFL's Super Bowl Committee has agreed to discuss shortening the game time of the Super Bowl to allow for more elaborate pre-game, halftime, and post-game entertainment. "We all agree that the Super Bowl broadcast runs a little long," said one NFL executive who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Broadcasts in recent years have run upwards of 7 hours. This year, we're having to stretch quite a bit to fit Billy Joel, Prince, and Beyonce in, and we had to reject many worthy entertainers, such as Christina Aguilera and Kevin Federline. We'd like to contract the pre- and post-halftime portions -- what is now known as 'the game' -- to provide more advertising and entertainment value to the casual Super Bowl viewer." Changes could be enacted as soon as Super Bowl XLII, scheduled for February 3, 2008.



That's all for now. Thanks for your time, and if you've got some extra cash on hand for this weekend, the official TPC progno-cast is that the Colts minus 7 and the under to 48.5 are a mortal lock to make you a few bucks in Vegas. Don't say we didn't tell you so.