I’m just saying…

– Christina Aguilera had at least two weeks to prepare for the National Anthem and she still managed to change a word and skip an entire verse. Did someone forget to rub her the right way before she went out to midfield? Because you know you have to do that with her, right?

– What a game by Jordy Nelson: Nine catches, 140 yards receiving and one touchdown. Now imagine how good his numbers would have been had he not dropped two first down passes right in his hands.

– Speaking of drops…James Jones is lucky the Packers held on to the win because his drop in the third quarter was setting up to be the turning point in the game. Nobody can make a potential touchdown disappear faster than James Deandre Jones.

– I want to commend Bruce Arians for his decision to be aggressive when the Steelers were backed up to their own 7-yard line late in the first quarter. Rashard Mendenhall had just ripped the Packers for 24 yards on two carries in the previous series, so naturally Arians wanted to prove how smart he was by taking a shot downfield. Nick Collins and the Packers want to thank you for the gift, Bruce.

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Five Things We Learned, John Clayton, ESPN
Clayton shares five things we learned about Super Bowl XLV, including how the long layoff helped the Packers more than it helped the Steelers.

Championship Worthy of Lombardi, Mike Lopresti, USA Today
You’d have loved Rodgers. Loved him like Bart Starr. Persistent, productive, unflappable, no longer in Brett Favre’s shadow. He’s had all those gaudy passing numbers, but what do those mean? You need an MIT graduate student to explain how to figure a quarterback rating. But everyone can figure out if a guy has won the Super Bowl, or he hasn’t.

Big Ben Comes Up Small in Defeat, Dan Graziano, FanHouse
Ben Roethlisberger was supposed to be the unflappable quarterback. The born winner who always made the big play in the big spot. A win Sunday would have meant a third Super Bowl title, and only four members of his profession have ever done that. Plans were being made to carve him right into that Mount Rushmore alongside Bradshaw, Montana, Aikman and Brady, and some were even putting forth the preposterous notion that a victory in Sunday night’s football game might somehow offer Roethlisberger some form of “redemption” for the reprehensible offseason behavior that almost got him drummed out of Pittsburgh and the NFL last year.

Ring Vaults Rodgers to Elite Status, William Rhoden, New York Times
Rodgers recounted how in 2005 he told Packers General Manager Ted Thompson that he would not regret drafting him. After they released Favre, Rodgers told Thompson, “I was going to repay their trust and get this opportunity.”

Steelers Get What They Deserve: Defeat, Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
You commit three turnovers and don’t get any. Two of your most dependable offensive stars fail you in the clutch. Your No. 1-rated defense in points allowed can’t stop the other team’s quarterback from throwing three touchdown passes. You deserve to lose.

Curse of Jerry Leads to Disaster, David Whitley, FanHouse
Everything he touched turned to frozen cow manure before the game, but who would’ve thought it was only a warmup? Sunday’s big hoedown at Cowboys Stadium turned into the imperfect ending to a thoroughly imperfect week. Unless you were a Packers fan, in which case you just want to get out of town before the Curse of Jerry gets you.

What Super Bowl Can Teach Other Sports, Mike Bianchi, Orlando Sentinel
Two of the tiniest markets in professional sports played in arguably the biggest Super Bowl in history Sunday night. There were more fans in the stadium (105,000) than any Super Bowl in history. There were more media (in excess of 5,000) covering this Super Bowl than ever before. All forecasters predicted that the TV ratings Sunday for Green Bay’s 31-25 victory will make this the most-watched event in the history of American television.

Here are five quick-hit observations from the Packers’ 31-25 victory over the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.

1. Aaron Rodgers, welcome to history.
I distinctly remember a few years ago when some Green Bay fans said that it was a mistake for GM Ted Thompson to choose Rodgers over Brett Favre. Hopefully those fans will happily eat a serving of crow after Sunday night because they were dead wrong. In a game where mistakes were aplenty, Rodgers made very few. He misfired on a few throws, but that’s just being nitpicky. For the most part, he was great and he would have been even better had guys like Jordy Nelson, James Jones and Brett Swain bothered to hang onto the ball. Mike McCarthy barely ran the ball in the second half, instead relying on Rodgers to win the game. After the Steelers took all the momentum in the third quarter, Rodgers stepped up and led the Packers on two huge scoring drives. On a night when he threw for 304 yards and three touchdowns, I wonder how much better his numbers would have been had his receivers not dropped so many passes. He didn’t have the game of his career, but he was excellent nonetheless. He now joins exclusive company as a Super Bowl-winning quarterback and MVP. As many football fans know, that now makes him virtually untouchable.

2. Once again, Green Bay battles through adversity.
How fitting was it that in a year when the Packers lost so many starters during the season that they would have to battle through more injury issues to win the Super Bowl. They lost two of their three defensive backs on consecutive plays near the end of the second quarter, including Pro Bowler and team leader Charles Woodson. Yet once again, they pushed through and overcame the hurdles that were placed in front of them. Let’s stop for a second and think about what this team was able to accomplish this year. They lost starters Ryan Grant, Jermichael Finley and Nick Barnett. They needed to win two games in Week 16 and Week 17 just to qualify for the playoffs. They had to win three straight games on the road in the postseason and then they suffered a couple of more key injuries in the Super Bowl and still won it all. Talk about a team of destiny. After they lost Woodson in the second quarter, it looked like they were headed for disaster in the second half. Yet they never trailed, which is a testament to the team that Ted Thompson built off the field and the team Mike McCarthy ran on it.

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