The Super Bowl

This year's Super Bowl has taught me that if a porno director made a movie starring Terrell Owens' ankle and Janet Jackson's nipple it would become more popular than Debbie Does Dallas and Deep Throat combined. Seriously, has the world ever been more consumed with two body parts? And TO's ankle is the least legitimate of the infatuations. At least the nipple gives life to babies and visual sustenance to boys aged 11-death everywhere; all TO's ankle does is prove that athletes since Achilles can still be felled by injuries to foot and leg connective devices. (And for those of you who didnt get my allusion to Trojan War you are indisputably cooler than I am.)
 
I thought we would never approach the brouhaha over a single body part again, and now we're once again walking down the path of insignificance. This is what happens when sportswriters who aren't very smart have to write about athletes who aren't very smart for an audience that isn't very smart for two solid weeks. Just play the damn game. I mean look at some of TO's quotes from the weeks (plural should be emphasized) leading up to this game. Keeping in mind that we have had wars (Six Days War in the Middle East) and near destruction of the world (Cuban Missle Crisis) that have occurred in half the time it has taken to play this game.
 
TO on his clearance to play in this game:

"The pain is minimal. God has already cleared me. I have the best doctor of all, and he cleared me."
 
Unfortunately TO did not explain exactly which HMO coverage plans God accepts.
 
TO on who he is:
 
"I am who I am."
 
He did not say whether he likes green eggs and ham.
 
TO on miracles:
 
"If you dont believe in miracles, wait until Sunday."
 
Apparently TO playing in a football game is the modern day equivalent of Jesus walking on water, the parting of the Red Sea, Jesus rising after the crucification , Noah fitting every animal on the Ark (including pubic lice),  and the Bible being conveniently written in english.
 
But even worse than this were the comments of Eagles trainer Rick Burkholder, who evidently did not get the memo from NFL public relations instructing him not to compare black athletes to animals.
 
"He's like Smarty Jones," Burkholder said, "I'm riding him through the week, and we're going to get him to the gate on Sunday and hopefully turn him loose. But you sure have to ride him right. You can't run him into the ground Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday because he won't be worth anything Sunday."
 
I don't know why Rick Burkholder felt the need to extend a bad simile into a strained metaphor in order to explain this complicated situation to the public. Wouldn't a simple: "We need to pace TO," have sufficed?
 
But regardless the image from this quote that I can't get away from is this, Burkholder making sure "to ride him right." Maybe the porno director would need another image after all to make sure the movie is a success, Janet Jackson's nipple and Terrell Owens's ankle would fill the first scene, but all great films require a second scene. And this most defintely would be a great film. So the second scene would have Burkholder riding TO at just the right pace. A pace so slow it could drag on for two weeks. Play the damn game.