Super Bowl Week: Media Day

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

I took off writing yesterday for my birthday since I couldn’t take off school or anything else, but there was no way I was going to miss the opportunity to make a few comments about Media Day down in Arlington. Unfortunately, my being in class all morning and having track obligations all afternoon kept me from seeing more than one or two guys live so you’ll see that my comments are on stuff that ended up on NFL.com.

The first video on NFL.com is of the Steelers players putting on a Troy Polamalu wig, including DE Brett Keisel who first used the wig to accentuate his beard. He was then asked how to spell “Polamalu,” and after messing up went on to say “T-R-O-Y.”

Ben Roethlisberger plans to just enjoy his time leading up the game because “you never know when it’ll be your last.” One thing that struck me during Big Ben’s time in front of the cameras is that he didn’t back down from any questions and he also didn’t take a lot of time trying to formulate a good answer. He’s been through a lot over the past year but, as he said, now isn’t the time to reflect because “it’s about this game.”

Unfortunately, the video on NFL.com for Roethlisberger’s counterpart, Packers QB Aaron Rodgers, only showed the two questions by NFLNetwork’s Deion Sanders. Despite the brevity of the video, it was long enough to tell me that Rodgers is looking forward first and foremost to the game and that he and Brett Favre have not been in communication about the game, that fact coming from a single “no” given by Rodgers to Sanders’s question.

Troy Polamalu, who was chosen as this year’s Defensive POY by the Associated Press, also had his time in front of the camera. He’s always appeared very quiet in front of the cameras when it’s not one of his Head & Shoulders ads. He was still quiet today, but he did give a little insight into his mind, specifically when he’s going in to make a hit on an opposing player. He said that there are a lot of factors but that the first thing that he thinks of is that it’ll hurt but that he’s doing it to support his family and he doesn’t “want to let his brothers down.”

Another player I had hoped to get something interesting from was James Harrison, the Steelers linebacker who has constantly been in the news around the league for being so heavily fined throughout the season. Unfortunately, as with many other players, there wasn’t a whole lot to comment on, other than his look at the end of the video after saying, “we are not trying to hit anyone hard. We don’t want to get fined.”

Though most of the players didn’t have a lot to say that I found to be so interesting that I had to comment on it, I was sure to check out the Coaches interviews.

Steelers HC Mike Tomlin:

This is the second time in four years that the Steelers, under Mike Tomlin, are in the Super Bowl. They won in their previous appearance against the Arizona Cardinals. Tomlin credited a lot of his team’s success this year to the players’ ability to make plays and not care who gets the credit. He also responded to a question from Deion Sanders about Center Maurkice Pouncey, saying that he “is not going to rule that young man out.” He said that everything Pouncey has done this year leads him to believe that Maurkice will be on that field if at all possible.

Packers HC Mike McCarthy:

In his first appearance in the Super Bowl as a head coach, McCarthy has a lot to be excited about. This is a Packers team that has had to deal with a lot of key players being listed on IR over the course of the season. No matter what happen this Sunday, they have a great shot at getting back to this point in the near future.

In the mean time, his focus is on this weekend. He said, about midway through his video, that in his previous five years the team has lacked a certain level of leadership. He mentioned not only QB Aaron Rodgers, but also CB Charles Woodson, as leaders that he feels have been cornerstones of the team’s success up to this point.

Most of the other players’ videos on NFL.com were full of clichés or just weren’t all that interesting and so aren’t worth my dragging on this already fairly long post.

For anything else, as always just check NFL.com, they have a lot more than I have time to post without losing interest from you. One thing that you may or may not be interested in was a video with Chad Ochocinco, which doesn’t really belong in this post but gives some insight into the Cincinnati Bengals organization. If you are interested, here is the link:

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-super-bowl/09000d5d81e0b1d1/Ochocinco-at-XLV?module=HP_video

I’ll be back tomorrow with some more Super Bowl week updates.