Today is Patriots Schadenfreude Day, which is always a supreme delight, but does come tinged by the knowledge that once it’s over, there’s still about 220 more days until meaningful NFL games are played. Womp womp. It’s no consolation, but we’ll have our usual array of KSK off-season features anyway. Some readers enjoy them as much or even more than our in-season content. Why? I have no idea, but we’re forever grateful to have people interested in our irrelevant rants about stupid things that bother us or mock drafts of breakfast cereals (Blueberry Morning FTW!) or which movie sex scene we’d most like to be featured breathing loudly in the corner.

Anyway, your Meast for Super Bowl XLVI is Mario Manningham. Unlike Super Bowl XLII, I have no real issue with Eli Manning winning MVP. Manningham’s game numbers weren’t all that impressive. Practically every other Giants skill player fumbled at some point. And except for a short stretch in the second half where he was tossing patented McNabb one-hoppers to his receivers, Eli played well throughout. Nevertheless, the Mannings are always gonna have people falling all over themselves to hand them awards, earned or not, they don’t need KSK’s fluffing prowess to boot. And there was no singular play in yesterday’s game more impressive than Mario’s catch. Not even close.

You Least for Super Bowl XLVI is…

WELKAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

Gutty drops of undersized heart. The best possible scenario for New England losing the Super Bowl would probably be Bill Simmons falling out a blimp above the stadium and deflecting a game-deciding kick as he plunged to the ground. But this was close. The Patriots receivers had many drops yesterday, none of which were as damaging or delicious as Welker’s.

Here’s Welkah postgame:

His voice, barely above a whisper, quavered as he deconstructed the dropped pass that stalled a potential victory-sealing drive.

Oh yeah. Journo sadness porn. Give it to me.

“The ball is right there. I’ve just got to make the play. It’s a play I’ve made 1,000 times in practice and everything else. It comes to be the biggest moment of my life and I don’t come up with it. It’s discouraging.”

Cris Collinsworth said live after the drop that Welker makes that catch 100 times out of 100, which is so stupid I half-expected Phil Simms to break into the booth with a surgical saw in order to try to get his brain back.

Now please never send me another e-mail, UGGs.

In Super Bowl XLVI, it was Tom Brady: Troll Genius who was tragically trolled by his receivers’ drops and his defense’s inability to fall on fumbles. He might have also hung up an underthrown deep ball to Gronkowski that was picked, but Collinsworth wanted to blame that one on Gronk for some misguided reason, which is dumb but helps us stick with a theme. Anyway, Dreamboat got some Brady-ain’t-care trolling for his own in before all was said and done, posing for an NBC in-game montage looking FIERCE in a way he hasn’t since the infamous waterslide incident.

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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]

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.

After two weeks of interminable hype, desperate casting for soft-focus storylines and looped footage of Super Bowl XLII, Super Bowl Sunday has arrived, a day that is mostly all the things I just mentioned plus a football game. We’ll get our Super Bowl live blog underway later this afternoon. In the meantime, more Peter King inanity to hold you over until the Puppy Bowl.

Not good fans, and therefore the usual assemblage of the uninitiated and members of Red Sox Nation who Peter King typically writes for in his weekly column, where any player who isn’t a big-name quarterback or one of his friends is surely being introduced to the nation for the first time. Who is this Cortez Kennedy? One of the defensive stalwarts of his era? A charismatic star who was frequently featured in national NFL promos? Or is he Seattle’s Starbucks quality control officer, who is tasked with enforcing the chain’s standards and dispatching the manager of any nationwide location that PK has suggested is serving watery, nutmegless coffee? ONLY ONE MAN KNOWS FOR SURE.

The celebrity Super Bowl pick is a time-honored tradition, one we at KSK are more than happy to take part in. For the next two weeks, stars from all over the world will drop in to make their picks. Today, it’s Drive star, Ryan Gosling.

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