Please be better two weeks from now

What a disappointing day of football. The salsa I ate with my chips was more exciting. The conference championship games are usually better than the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, Denver and Carolina seemed to forget that. At one point during Steelers-Broncos, I switched to figure skating on NBC because it was more interesting. And during Panthers-Seahawks, I kept looking at the clock, wondering how much time I had before Grey's Anatomy was on.

However, I do enjoy watching teams play at their best, when everything's clicking. And if both Pittsburgh and Seattle bring those games to Detroit in two weeks, that could be a fun Super Bowl to watch.

▪▪ Aren't the Pittsburgh Steelers the best thing that could happen for a Detroit Super Bowl? There seem to be so many fans in the area already. But Pittsburgh's roughly a four-hour drive away, so it's a short trip for diehard followers. And who's a better ambassador for Detroit than native son Jerome Bettis? He was already selling the city during the Steelers' post-game press conference. And if the national media is focused on Bettis's homecoming, maybe they (those who haven't had their Detroit-bashing columns ready for months) won't have time to complain about where the Super Bowl is being played.

▪▪ Hey, don't forget Larry Foote's coming home, too.

▪▪ My favorite thing about the Panthers-Seahawks game? No Gatorade shower for Mike Holmgren. The FOX cameras showed the players getting the cooler ready, but never got a chance to douse their coach. I think this may have been Holmgren's shrewdest display of coaching genius. Rather than stand in one place and wait for the end of the game, Holmgren handed off his headphones with two minutes or so remaining and sought out people to congratulate. So the players couldn't draw a bead on him. Thank you, Mike Holmgren, for sparing us the most overplayed, cliche, old bit gesture in sports.

▪▪ Bill Cowher wasn't so fortunate, though. Oh, well.

▪▪ Which Jake had the worse game, Plummer or Delhomme? The stats say Delhomme. But I say Seattle's defense never gave him a chance. Even when receivers were open, somebody was in his face. Plummer made poorer decisions, which took the Broncos out of the game. And I know Denver fell behind early and fast, but didn't they give up on the run too soon? How did they win games all season?

▪▪ Do you think Chicago's Lovie Smith and Ron Rivera watched the way Seattle handled Steve Smith, and then wondered why the #@$% they didn't do that? That has to be the most baffling coaching strategy of the 2006 NFL playoffs.

▪▪ How #@$%ing cool was that new Nike commercial with the AC/DC soundtrack? Oh, my inner latent metalhead was tingling. After listening to the opening of "Rock 'n Roll Ain't Noise Pollution," and watching all those athletes (including Tom Brady, among several others) get up and train, I was pumped up. So pumped up that I got out of my chair... and went to the bathroom. But I could, like, go jogging today because I was so amped. Or take the garbage can to the curb with authority.

(Photo by Peter Diana/ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)