Disappointment

We know that will be a new Super Bowl champion on the evening of February 1st.

For those in the NYC vicinity, here's a preview of the post-mortem article of the New York Giants' season that will appear in the New York Beacon tomorrow morning:

What the Giants can take from this season is they found an identity as a team without having some of the more outspoken or at least colorful personalities that they have had in years. Michael Strahan’s retirement and the trade of Jeremy Shockey prior to their Super Bowl defense may have left a void of publicly vocal players. Add the loss of Osi Umeyiora during the preseason along with the Burress saga, and the team had every reason to collapse under the weight of having to defend their crown.

However, considering that this team wasn’t expected to make the playoffs before the season began, they exhibited a tunnel vision that few Giants teams have had in recent seasons. That’s not easy in any city, but doing such here as the defending league champions is as daunting of a challenge as any in American sports. “I told the players I’m very proud of them individually and collectively,” Coughlin added. “We’ve had good solid leadership, we accomplished a lot in the regular season, but it doesn’t carry a whole lot of over into the postseason.”

While the G-men won't carry on, here are a few things that will (especially for the crowd that only watches the Super Bowl for the commercials):

• Here's the Advertising Age section solely devoted to the content around the big game. In all honesty, can someone help me understand the reinvigorated interest in 3D viewing? I'm not knocking it, but it feels a little... hokey? Desperate, maybe?
• Eli Manning is about to get PAIIIIIIIIIIIID... and New York has a conniption. Please, Giants fans, take two of these... or these.
• If you haven't caught it yet (and thanks to SPJ for forwarding this Freedom of Expression in my direction), here are the newest members of Mensa. I can understand Justin Tuck or Fred Robbins taking the loss kind of hard, but... nevermind.
• MediaPost had a few interesting sports media and business related stories yesterday that weren't posted because... well, just because. Nielsen continues to try and help clients determine the value of their sports sponsorships, the Nets (who will have another writer chasing them down starting next week) like burritos and the idea of not dying broke, Audi and NFL Films want it Fast and Furious and Honda tells the people that it's okay to fail.
• Finally, returning to the NFL... well, you decide if this was cool or not.