The unstoppable force met the immovable object, and Peyton Manning lost

super bowl

OK, it was the first Super Bowl that was over after the first freakin’, freaky play. But if only we’d known that. Then, maybe, we could have saved four miserable hours of our lives. We’d have left it at 2-0, and all we’d be forced to remember was one bad play and Joe Namath’s outerwear.

Think what we could have missed:

1. The game.

2. The is-there-anything-more-American-than-America Dylan ad, which, I promise, will give me nightmares for years.

3. The game.

4. The cow sex ad.

5. The game.

On the other hand, if we hadn’t watched, we’d have missed the Seinfeld Jerry-George-Newman bit. Fortunately, there’s this thing now called the Internet, and you can watch the full version here.

Of course, if you’re still feeling low, you should know that it could have been worse. After all, this 43-8 trashing wasn’t the Broncos’ most lopsided Super Bowl loss. That would have been the 55-10 loss to the the 49ers in Super Bowl XXIV. I remember my lead that night was something like this: If this had been a football game, they would have stopped it.

I think you can say pretty much the same thing today.

[ Photo via Broncos’ Ben Hays. ]

He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow.