What were you thinking?!

I just finished my first live chat for CharlotteObserver.com.You can click here to read what transpired.

The questions were really good. It was interesting to see what you, the sports fan, were thinking. I answered 36 questions in 60 minutes, so there's not a lot of long answers there, but we got into a lot of subjects: from Jordan Gross to Michael Jordan, from Julius Peppers to Oliver Purnell, from downtown baseball to Bobby Lutz.

I will be doing these chats on a semi-regular basis, so hope to see you at one of them.

Let's you and me talk

I'm doing my first live online chat for CharlotteObserver.com on THIS FRIDAY, FEB.6 from NOON-1 P.M.

If you go to the CharlotteObserver.com homepage, you'll find the place to go for this chat when it happens. I'll answer as many questions as I can get to. For those of you who remember the old "Scott Fowler Q and A" on our website -- a labor of love for which I answered over 4,000 reader questions over a period of many months -- I expect these chats to be something like that, but faster-paced.

I expect there will be some questions about Julius Peppers, Jordan Gross, John Fox, Larry Brown (who I had a long talk with Thursday -- look for a column on Brown in Friday's paper and online), Dick Vitale (coming to Davidson Saturday for the first time), ACC hoops, Stephen Curry, UNCC football and so on. But I hope to be surprised a few times as well. Some of the best questions in that old Q and A (which was replaced by this blog, as it was too time-consuming to do both that as well as this blog) were questions that no one else had ever asked me.

Hope to see you right here -- in a digital sort of way -- Friday from noon to 1 p.m.

3 fun college hoops dates in February

When it's not snowing or something, February can be a little blah. So here are 3 college-basketball related events I'm looking forward to in the next 3 weeks:

1) Sat., Feb.7, 6 p.m. Charleston at Davidson (ESPN2). The Wildcats face another challenge to that amazing Southern Conference win streak. And Dick Vitale, who's called nearly 1,000 games, makes his first-ever appearance at a Davidson home game.
I talked to Vitale today for a column that will appear in Saturday's Charlotte Observer and on charlotteobserver.com. "I'm really enthused," he said. "I'm usually doing Carolina or Duke or Kentucky or Connecticut -- I've been to all those places so many times. And don't get me wrong, I like to do those games. But this Davidson game is really going to be refreshing."

2) Wed., Feb.11, 9 p.m. UNC at Duke. No explanation needed.

3) Mon., Feb.23, 9 p.m. If you've got HBO, you'll want to check out "Battle for Tobacco Road," a new HBO documentary on the Duke-UNC rivalry. They've interviewed a host of greats on both sides for this one and I know firsthand the HBO folks are well-prepared on the subject -- I sat down for an interview for this documentary myself and heard their questions. I haven't seen the one-hour film yet so I can't tell you how good or bad it is, but if it's up to the usual HBO standards, you know it's going to be enjoyable.

Computer declares Fox way too conservative

On Super Bowl Sunday, The New York Times published an interesting series of stories and charts based on the work of a computer program called Zeus. It's complicated stuff, and if you want to get more into it, check out the site pigskinrevolution.com or else this FAQ that was in the Times.

An alert reader named Larry -- a former resident of N.C., currently of Tampa and still, he says, a PSL holder -- pointed it out to me.

After running through millions of scenarios, Zeus decided among other things that teams should go for it far more often on fourth down, because a good offense generally can convert that from short distances and that the onside kick is severely under-utilized. It advocates aggressiveness in play-calling -- not just because of a gut feeling, but because of science.

So how does Panthers coach John Fox rate on this scale?

You probably won't be surprised that Zeus judged Fox to be dead last -- No.32 out of 32 -- on how often he made a decision that would agree with what the Zeus computer program would have said he should do. Zeus's rankings aren't far off the NFL's 2008 stats for teams that went for it on fourth down most vs. least often -- Carolina went for it the fewest times (8) and Jacksonville the most (24).

Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio finished first in Zeus's rankings -- he's notoriously aggressive on play-calling -- and yet the Jaguars didn't make the playoffs. (Zeus would likely say this is because the human execution part of the play-call cannot be accounted for). Pittsburgh, the Super Bowl champion, was 10th.

Of course, the Panthers still managed to go 12-4, secure a first-round bye and finish 7th in the NFL in scoring. So it's way, way off the mark for any human (or computer program) to call Fox the No.32 coach in the NFL. For all his flaws, I'd label him a top 10 NFL head coach.

But this does back up a lot of anecdotal evidence I've gathered over the years: Fox may well be the most conservative coach in the entire NFL. If Fox could just curb that conservative impulse a bit, he might turn into a Top 5 NFL coach and the Panthers might well win a Super Bowl one day.

But as I've written a number of times, Fox said in our first long interview way back in 2002 shortly after he was hired: "A punt is not a bad play." And, for better and for worse, the coach has never strayed far from that philosophy.

Panthers' Super Bowl odds for 2010

It's never too early to think about the next NFL season, right? So here are some very early odds, courtesy of online gambling site BodogLife.com, on who will win the 44th Super Bowl one year from now. The Panthers, as you can see, are 18-1 -- less of a long shot than defending NFC champ Arizona, which is 30-1. New England and Dallas are the favorites, for whatever that's worth.


Odds to win the 2010 Super Bowl XLIV

New England Patriots 8/1
Dallas Cowboys 9/1
New York Giants 10/1
Pittsburgh Steelers 10/1
Indianapolis Colts 12/1
San Diego Chargers 12/1
Baltimore Ravens 14/1
Tennessee Titans 16/1
Carolina Panthers 18/1
Philadelphia Eagles 18/1
New Orleans Saints 20/1
Atlanta Falcons 25/1
Denver Broncos 25/1
Green Bay Packers 25/1
Jacksonville Jaguars 25/1
Minnesota Vikings 25/1
New York Jets 25/1
Arizona Cardinals 30/1
Chicago Bears 30/1
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 30/1
Buffalo Bills 35/1
Houston Texans 35/1
Miami Dolphins 35/1
Washington Redskins 35/1
Seattle Seahawks 50/1
Cleveland Browns 55/1
Cincinnati Bengals 60/1
San Francisco 49ers 60/1
Oakland Raiders 75/1
St. Louis Rams 75/1
Detroit Lions 100/1
Kansas City Chiefs 100/1

Rating the Super Bowl commercials: Top 5

Other than the Pittsburgh Steelers, I thought Pepsi was the biggest winner Sunday night at the Super Bowl. Pepsi ads took two of the three spots in my “Best Super Bowl Commercials” list, as well as an honorable mention. Here are the five Super Bowl commercials I enjoyed the most Sunday night.

1. Pepsi Max: “I’m Good.” More laughs per second than any other ad, as men kept accidentally hurting other men (my favorite was the bowling-ball bit). Then the hurt men, in obvious pain, would proclaim: “I’m Good.” Not sure what it has to do with the taste of a soft drink, but it sure is funny.

2. Conan’s Swedish Ad: Conan O’Brien, playing himself, gets suckered into a Bud Light beer commercial that he is told will air only in Sweden. Instead, of course, it goes everywhere. Conan is always good at making fun of himself.

3. Pepsuber: I’m already partial to the “Saturday Night Live” sketch this ad is drawn from, where a character named “MacGruber” routinely gets himself blown up in ridiculous ways. This time, MacGruber changes his name to “Pepsuber” to promote his new endorsement and, once again, incorrectly defuses a bomb with awful results.

4. Denny’s “Thugs” ad: As a bunch of Mafia types discuss what sounds like a hit over breakfast, a busybody waitress keeps decorating their pancakes with whipped cream. This spot also had the best information encased in an ad: Anyone who shows up at a Denny’s between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. Tuesday gets a free Grand Slam breakfast.

5. Doritos – Power of the Crunch: A guy realizes he can crunch a Dorito and make an ATM spit out money or a girl lose almost all of her clothes. His luck runs out when he runs out of Doritos and gets hit by a bus.

Honorable mention: E-trade’s talking babies (“Take these broken wings …”); Castrol’s “grease” monkeys; Pepsi’s “Refresh Anthem” starring Bob Dylan.

Best Super Bowl ever? Yes

After all the hype, the mini-concerts and the endless pregame shows, they finally played a football game Sunday night.

And what an unbelievable Super Bowl it was -- ultimately won by the Pittsburgh Steelers, who now stand alone with six Super Bowl wins in franchise history.

That was a mesmerizing game and an incredible fourth quarter, when Arizona leaped from 20-7 down to 23-20 ahead, only to lose 27-23 when Pittsburgh's Santonio Holmes tapped his toes in the corner of the end zone to score the game-winning TD with 35 seconds left.

I thought NBC's Al Michaels showed some nice restraint in the final moments saying only that "this was in the same neighborhood" compared to last year's New England-N.Y. Giants thriller, but I'll go a bit further.

To me, this one was the best. I had no dog in the hunt and didn't care who won, but the game felt big and well-played and had a great final hour. I always favor a game that ends with a TD, not a FG, for the winning points (unlike Carolina's dramatic Super Bowl loss to New England 5 years ago).

So here's my list of the half-dozen most entertaining Super Bowls ever, counting them down from 6 to 1.

6. Pittsburgh 35, Dallas 31... 1978 season. Bradshaw throws 4 TDs, Bleier recovers late Dallas onside kick to seal it.

5. New England 20, St. Louis 17... 2001 season. The Greatest Show on Turf goes down and the Patriots' dynasty begins.

4. N.Y. Giants 17, New England 14.... 2007 season. David Tyree catches the ball off his helmet and the Giants ruin the Patriots' season of perfection.

3. San Francisco 20, Cincinnati 16... 1988 season. Montana begins the 92-yard drive to win it by off-handedly noticing that actor John Candy was in the stands.

2. New England 32, Carolina 29... 2003 season. You know all about this one, but the 37 total points scored in the fourth quarter still amazes me.

1. Pittsburgh 27, Arizona 23... 2008 season. Larry Fitzgerald and Kurt Warner shredded the Steel Curtain in the 4th quarter and the Steelers still pull it off. Amazing stuff.