Super Bowl XLV lead-in is quiet, so far
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Super Bowl XLV lead-in is quiet, so far
With Super Bowl XLV less than a week away, much of the media is awaiting a story to pounce on. Usually this close to a Super Bowl you can get some juicy information about a player soliciting a “working woman,” throwing a huge bash in their hotel or causing a ruckus in some other way.
The Packers and the Steelers just are not built like that. Both teams have a pretty stellar track record of keeping their noses clean, at least during the season. Because of this cleanliness, much of the non-sports media is picking up on the non-story and TMZ-like stories.
Overall this has been a very uneventful and law-abiding lead to a Super Bowl. The only stories to be brought up were the Packers picture fiasco, which is completely ridiculous and there was no reason for the team to leave those players out. However, the players had no rights to complain about it and Rodgers should have just held his tongue and moved on. Instead, you had a few days of a starting quarterback and a few injured Packers going back-and-forth until finally saying [we are cool now].
On the Steelers front, the only story coming out is Hines Wards strip club attendance. First thing is that is not an appropriate question for a member of the media to ask. Secondly Hines handled that question about as well as anyone could have. Hines said, “I wasn’t there” and when asked where he was the prior night, Hines responded with “That’s none of your business” as he laughed. That is the reaction that is expected of a savvy veteran—in both the NFL and dealing with the media.
All-in-all, this has been exactly the Super Bowl lead in that everyone expected with these two franchises. Our hats off to the Steelers and Packers organizations for keeping the Super Bowl about winning the game, not extracurricular shenanigans.