This picture is worth a thousand $25 million Brentwood mansions.

Bless you, Giants.

Bless you, ringier Manning. There are probably some positive words that can be spelled with the letters in your name.

Bill Simmons is in Brady’s hotel room already calling Manningham’s sideline catch even luckier than Tyree’s giant snatch. The Patriots now have a losing record in the Super Bowl. I won’t have to see Madonna and Jerry Seinfeld on my TV until their death tribute.

Before the Manningham catch, the longest play in the game was Ocho’s 21-yard reception. As the Hail Mary approached, Drew and I feared that a completed final throw would have been the worst of all conclusions, validating all the Myra Kraft dome-roof skypointing and false destiny bullsh*t that would have followed. Luckily Gromkowski pulled up short on the tip in the end zone and gloriously, that was it.

More to come. Most of it laughing at the Patriots.

The Giants decisively outplayed the Patriots in the first half. Bill Belichick displayed Andy Reid-ian clock management skills toward the end. His team doesn’t bother covering tight ends. The Pats defensive line was on rollerskates. Yet here we are with the Gritriots winning on the strength of a late gritdown from Danny Woodhead.

So now that the Patriots have survived that early onslaught, predictable game patterns dictate that New England has the edge to run away with it, even though Gronkowski has his requisite single catch for today. Still praying that the Giants pull this out for the usual reasons, but also because Simmons will never stop complaining about that Brady safety.

[gif via jose3030]

Believe it or not, Kelly Clarkson actually had a respectable Anthem performance, even if NBC did her no favors by giving her the chin cam. No doubt Madonna will even things out with a thoroughly wretched set of 500 Spiderman push-ups. Lucky us, she’s even going to be performing that new single where she wants to pretend it’s the ’80s and she’s not 700. Likely she and Nicki Minaj will share a forced kiss for purposes of scandal and getting us someone even older and more outdated next year.

[pic via Burnsy]

The Super Bowl, you guys. It came after all. You feared you’d never get to see commercials with chimps dressed as stewardesses headbutting random men in the dick to sell car insurance. Now you will! Plus Twitter gets to explode by the end of the first quarter. Maybe the whole Internet, too, because the game is being streamed online for the first time. The American dream is still alive. Take that, terrorist commie invading alien clown frauds.

We survived two weeks of Gronkowski ankle updates, Bill Simmons bitching in advance about the Giants faking injuries to slow the Greatriots offense, profiles of Belichick’s shadowy inner circle and examinations of whether another Super Bowl ring will push Brady or Eli into the list of greatest living presidents. Also, fans sublimated their big game anticipation into concentrated stupid thing energy.

And what Super Bowl run-up could be complete without BULLETIN BOARD MATERIAL OF ANCIENT MAYAN DOOM. It looked bleak for morons bleating about superstition until this morning when Chris Canty tweeted a prediction that the Giants would win 28-17. Finally, someone to blame when the karma gods invoke their new age wrath on the Giants.

Hope you didn’t bet the over on the prop bet for shots of Peyton Manning during the game, because from the looks of ESPN’s pregame coverage, Ol’ Battleship is taking in Super Bowl XLII.2 from his Gatorade Is It In You™ NeckAIDS Fallout Bunker deep beneath the city.

So let’s do this. The official KSK position is that this Super Bowl matchup is only worthwhile if the Patriots lose, but it can be a closely contested game, preferably with a huge momentum-swinging play that makes Simmons issue poorly veiled complaints for the next decade. And while this Brady Photoshop is admirable, I can’t support the underlying sentiment or bad comic book movies.

By the way, for this live blog, we’re introducing commenter achievements and badges. Rolling out two today: one for any signed-in reader who comments on a live blog and another for any who share via Facebook or Twitter. Peter King says many movie buffs won’t know the “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!” came from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but then they aren’t real movie fans.

Kickoff is still hours away. Anything to distract you from NBC’s or ESPN’s dueling pregame circle derps. Animal-related cuteness will do nicely.