Now that Super Bowl XL has come and gone, bringing with it the usual thrills and chills - thrills for players and fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers, chills (not to mention shakes, headaches, and maybe even a sick call to work) for anyone who may have gotten a little too caught up in the whole Super Bowl party thing, what is a football fan to do until next season begins?

Sure, we have the Pro Bowl to look forward to this weekend, but that isn't the same thing as watching a real game, with real players playing with real emotion for a real outcome. The only way they can even get players to come to this event is by having it in Hawaii, but the draw of the tropical weather doesn't change the fact that the Pro Bowl is just an exhibition game and the main focus of the players, rightfully so, is to avoid injury.

So what to do? Some of us don't have the ability or the time to play Madden '06 continuously until we can manipulate the game to make our favorite team win the Super Bowl. In addition to holding down real jobs, we already have family members who look at us a little strangely, and besides, it's not half as much fun screaming at yourself for making a stupid coaching decision as it is pretending to know a play the real coach called wasn't going to work as you watch the replay of the actual game on TV.

Analyzing the upcoming draft is a possibility if you're so inclined. By so inclined I mean you enjoy other exciting things like watching snow melt and, of course, you already won Madden '06, since you clearly are immune to that "strange looks from family members" thing.

Well, if you are a long-time New England sports fan, you can console yourself by watching any of your three championship DVD's, or do as I have done, and look back over the recent past in appreciation of what, exactly, your local football franchise has accomplished over the past half-decade. This is especially enjoyable if you have a long enough memory to recall exactly what a joke this Patriots franchise was for so long.

Can anyone forget the head coach (Clive Rush) who was nearly electrocuted at his introductory press conference? Most head coaches at least get the opportunity to fail before being eliminated. How about the rinky-dink stadium, built over something like a single summer, for about what you would spend on one of those little sheds people put in their back yards? Before it was finally bulldozed into something appropriate, a parking lot, this stadium had had nearly as many names (Schaefer Stadium, Sullivan Stadium, Foxboro Stadium) as seats. Or the Lisa Olson controversy involving the female reporter who was famously harassed by players with their "Patriot Missile" comment during the first Iraq War?

Now, however, those days are long over. New England is looked at as a sports model, both in terms of success on the field and franchise management. It is that success on the field that most of us sports junkies, or at least me, enjoy. It is an example of how far this team has come that not at least making the AFC Championship game was viewed as unacceptable by both team management and players. The consistency of performance over the last five years has been eye-popping.

The last time the New England Patriots lost consecutive games, in a league constructed to achieve parity, was, incredibly, Dec. 16 and 22, 2002, a span of 1,144 days. This includes three seasons of playoff appearances and two Super Bowl championships.

This means the Pats have played 57 games since they last suffered back-to-back losses, a string of consistency unmatched in today's NFL. To put that number in context, it is nearly three times longer than the next-most consistent team, the Jacksonville Jaguars at 21 games. Here are the numbers ( I told you my family looks at me a little strangely):
1) New England Patriots - 57
2) Jacksonville Jaguars - 21
3) Seattle Seahawks - 18
Denver Broncos - 18
New York Giants - 18
Carolina Panthers - 18
7) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - 9

I could go on and on, but then you probably already feel like I have. The point here is obvious, but I'll state it anyway. No one can win a championship every year, especially when the draft and schedule are constructed to prevent that. Consistent achievement, however, gives fans and players a sense that winning a Super Bowl is a real possibility every year. This is what keeps interest high, even when one season just ended, and it's six long months until the next one begins.

How would you like to be Super Bowl referee Bill Leavy right now, sitting in your kitchen, cradling a cup of coffee, wondering what happened? How in the space of less than four hours you went from being a mostly anonymous but well-respected member of one of sports most exclusive clubs (NFL referee) to one of sports most recognized and reviled figures? Imagine knowing the only place you can vacation this summer if you want to get any peace and quiet is Pittsburgh...yikes!

In the wake of an NFL postseason where the officiating was considered questionable at best, came Super Bowl XL where many observers felt the officiating crew, led by Leavy, may have had as much or more to do with the Steelers winning their fifth Super Bowl than the Pittsburgh players, most of whom played as if they had had a little Super Bowl party of their own before kickoff.

Virtually every questionable call seemed to go against the Seahawks, making Leavy and his crew about as popular in Seattle as the guy that invented the bikini is in Tehran. Columnist Ted Miller, writing in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Tuesday, comes close to floating an NFL conspiracy theory, using words like "screwed, dubious, stupid, dastardly and execrable" in his article, which ends, "It's just too bad --- for everyone --- that the officials made sure Super Bowl XL wasn't 'Extra Large,' as the joke went, but 'Extremely Lame.'"

Most people that watched the game, or at least me, feel it wasn't a case of some unnamed NFL bigwigs in a grassy knoll overlooking Ford Field pulling strings to ensure a warm, fuzzy ending to their heartwarming Jerome Bettis story; rather a case of the sloppy enforcement of rules that has plagued the NFL this entire playoff season. Unfortunately for Seattle (and anyone who may have wanted to see a fair game), this sloppy officiating came on the biggest stage.

Exactly what can be done about the problem of a few men regulating a fast, complicated game played by some of the best athletes in the world is the question. Undoubtedly the league will strive to address this problem in the offseason. For the Seattle Seahawks and their fans, however, that will be small consolation.

Donovan Mcnabb has done the impossible! We know he didn't do it on the football field, since the Philadelphia Eagles haven't played a meaningful game since, oh, October 2005. So what did he do? Rescue a baby from a burning building? Make a commercial where he comes off looking better than his mom? Sadly, no, it was nothing that interesting.
With his comment Wednesday that the insult he took from Terrell Owens last November as Owens was busy not just burning bridges but nuking them on his way out of Philadelphia was akin to "black on black crime," Mcnabb, a long-time professional who should know better, actually looks more ridiculous than T.O. himself.
In case you haven't heard, or you have but simply want to relive the moment in all its glory, here's the deal. Last November, in an interview aired on ESPN, T.O. basically agreed with Michael Irvin's assertion that Brett Favre's struggles this season were mostly due to a lack of talent in his surrounding cast. He said that if you took Favre and surrounded him with the offensive cast of the Eagles, Phillie would have a better record than they did at the time, maybe even be undefeated.
Mcnabb kept quiet about the snub at the time, at least publicly, but in a wide-ranging interview with Michael Smith of ESPN.com Wednesday, Mcnabb broke his silence in a big way. No quarterback would be happy being called out by a teammate in that way, especially during the season, but of all the things Mcnabb had to be upset about (and there were many), race just shouldn't have been part of the equation.
Mcnabb felt hurt by T.O.'s assertion that the Eagles would have been better off with Favre, a three-time NFL MVP, Super Bowl winner, certain Hall of Famer and in his day maybe the most dangerous offensive player in the league, not to mention a white quarterback. Yet he implied it would have been more acceptable if Owens had put African-American quarterbacks Steve Mcnair, Michael Vick, Byron Leftwich or Daunte Culpepper on his wish list.
Of all those players, only Mcnair has won an MVP award (once), and none has won a Super Bowl or performed at or near the level Favre did for such a long time. Any or all of them may end up doing so, but none has as yet.
For Donovan Mcnabb to put a racial slant on the issue is to take away from the real point of the matter. Black on black crime is wrong, as is white on black crime, black on white crime, or any other kind of crime. The real crime here is, once again, the amazing ability of Terrell Owens to waste his incredible talent on the football field by becoming a distraction to his team and by self-destructing, this time during the season.
Donovan Mcnabb is clearly a thoughtful, intelligent guy, a fact that comes across if you see the entire interview. It's a shame he played the obvious, if inappropriate, race card and became the story instead of keeping the focus where it belonged: on the sad case of Terrell Owens.