What’s the greatest moment in Super Bowl history?

The answer depends on whom you ask, of course, as one is typically partial to their own team’s success.

For some, it might be Joe Namath running off the field after completing his guaranteed upset in Super Bowl III. Maybe it’s The Fridge leaping over hapless Patriots at the goal line, Neil O’Donnell telegraphing interceptions to Larry Brown, John Elway’s helicopter, Joe Montana spotting John Candy in the stands and driving for the winning score, David Tyree’s helmet catch or Tracy Porter streaking into the end zone on an interception return.

If you are a fan of the Browns or Lions, it is probably a non-football-related moment, like seeing that star thingy on Janet Jackson’s nipple.

But all of those moments have been rendered moot. Sunday brought us the greatest moment in Super Bowl history — and you only saw it if you live in or around North Platte, Nebraska. (Here’s looking at you, Cozad!)

In an Andy Kaufman-esque move — as in the comedian, not the former Fighting Illini basketball player — the spot was only aired in the nation’s No. 209 TV market. There are only 210 TV markets. Adding to the hilarity is the fact the ad cuts off before Ferrell is able to finish saying “Old Milwaukee.”

And just like that, we’re being told that News 2 meteorologist  Tara Moore gives us coverage we can count on. (We assume Tara Moore is currently drafting a thank-you note to Will Ferrell as she is now getting more noticed than any meteorologist in the next 150 or so markets).

If she doesn’t, I will.

Thank you, Will Ferrell. You are my hero.

Like Old Milwaukee says, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Last Tuesday, a buddy and I decide last second to go to the Indiana Pacers game. It’s Super Bowl Week and it’s an excuse to go downtown for some SBXLVI ambiance. Plus, the tickets are $2 on StubHub, which is pretty much the norm for Pacers games these days.

Midway through the first quarter, a tall, black man emerges from the concourse into our upper deck section and begins gesturing toward us.

“I think that’s Mel Daniels,” my buddy says.

“It’s not Mel Daniels. Doesn’t have that beaver-ish look to him.”

We get up and make our way toward the man. He works for the Pacers and his name tag tells me he is in fact an ABA Pacers legend. But not Mel Daniels. It’s Darnell Hillman. And he offers to trade tickets with us. From the sixth row of the upper deck to spitting distance of the court. Not bad for $2.

After absolutely killing it for Super Bowl XLVI, Indianapolis has all of the sudden established itself as a marquee sports city.

But while the Super Bowl and Peyton Manning got all the headlines, the state synonymous with basketball has all but forsaken its pro hoops team.

The Malice in the Palace was seven years ago and there’s no denying the rift between the team and community was devastating. But is it irreparable?

Apparently.

A year ago, the Pacers finished dead last in attendance (13,538/game). And despite this young team’s spirited playoff series with budding rival Chicago and 17-7 record, the Indy fans remain reluctant. This season, the Pacers are just 26th in attendance.

Team President Larry Bird has done everything he can to completely transform the roster from what many in the community saw as a gun-toting, pot-smoking group of dysfunction. Fair or not, there were strip club stand-offs and drug arrests.

Burdened with some awful contracts, the Pacers began a slow restoration, preaching patience to a disgusted fan base. Slowly but surely, Larry Legend – despite growing criticism – assembled a competitive roster in a small market.

And after firing Jim O’Brien midseason last year, the Pacers found renewed life under Frank Vogel, whose brash nature provides a cockiness fans like – or at least should like. And the team is one the fans should like as well. Danny Granger and David West aren’t All-Stars anymore, but they’re still very good players. Roy Hibbert is finally showing consistency, Paul George is a budding star and Darren Collison and George Hill provide solid work at the point. And then there’s Tyler Hansbrough, who is just plain psycho, but in a good way.

Yet the fans continue to stay away. And it’s not as if the Pacers aren’t trying to lure them in with cut-rate ticket prices and unheard of discounts. In fact, Forbes.com ranked the Pacers as having the third-most affordable Fan Cost Index in the league. But still, they stay away.

Tuesday’s win against the Jazz drew a pathetic 11,006, many of whom were probably there just for a glimpse of Butler and local golden boy Gordon Haywayd.

Asked after the game about whether or not the Super Bowl overshadowed his team’s strong start to the season and now that the big game is gone, can his team fill that sporting void, Vogel responded:

“I hope so, because I love the people here. I’ve spoken to and met a ton of them over the years and what they’ve been asking for, we now have. We’ve got a good basketball team. And we have a chance to win every night. A chance to go deep in the playoffs. We have high character guys. We’re fun. We play the game the right way. We share the basketball. We play with physicality and defend. And yeah with the Super Bowl gone I expect our crowds to really pick up over the next few weeks.”

Let’s just hope former ABA legends don’t have to keep trolling for upper deckers to make the lower bowl look full on TV.

The Los Angeles Lakers decided not to use their amnesty clause before the start of this season, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t planning to exercise it at some point.

While the Lakers enjoy having Ron Artest Metta World Peace on their roster, and he’s very popular with his teammates, general manager Mitch Kupchak is likely to amnesty the man referred to MWP this offseason.

World Peace is due more than 7.25 million for the 2012-13 season in the form of a player option he is almost guaranteed to pick up, and is additionally owed more than $7.7 million for 2013-14. With his diminishing skills, there is no way the Lakers can afford to pay him that much. They would also save roughly $7 million in luxury tax money by setting World Peace free.

Los Angeles needs to add some younger, more athletic wing players. While Kobe Bryant is having a great season, he clearly needs some help on offense.

World Peace has done a great job rehabbing his image with the Lakers. He was invaluable to the team during its championship run in 2010 and his work in the community and with his teammates has really endeared him to NBA fans, and the city of Los Angeles.

There is a chance that after he is cut loose, the Lakers could re-sign World Peace for less money, possibly for the veteran’s minimum since he would already be raking in his full salary for the next two seasons. In that case the Lakers wouldn’t really be forced to use him as anything more than a second-unit guy. He could also teach Devin Ebanks – whose potential and athleticism the Lakers love – how to be a true defensive stopper.

While having World Peace in the purple and gold has been fun, and great for both parties, it may not last much longer.

Los Angeles Lakers star guard Kobe Bryant opened Monday night’s contest against the Philadelphia 76ers 23 points behind Shaquille O’Neal for fifth place on the NBA’s career scoring list. It only took him one half to pass his former teammate.

Bryant nailed a long jumper to give him 24 points on the night and move him ahead of O’Neal into fifth place on the all-time scoring list. It is fitting that he accomplished the feat in Philadelphia, since he went to Lower Merion High School just outside of the city.

Bryant was booed by the crowd during pregame introductions and throughout the game. Philly fans booing someone? You don’t say.

O’Neal retired after the 2010-11 season with 28,596 points. Bryant now has 28,601 after scoring 28 points in tonight’s 95-90 loss to the 76ers. Next on the list is Wilt Chamberlain, who occupies fourth place at 31,419 points.

Bryant has looked fantastic this season so far, even with a torn ligament in his right wrist. His averages in scoring, rebounding, assists, and minutes are all up from last season and he looks more dangerous than he has in few years.

At this rate it wouldn’t be surprising if he hangs on for a few more years and catches Chamberlain.

Things I thought of during this year’s Super Bowl, not necessarily in order of importance or chronology:

- Some lucky bastard in Vegas must have made a fortune on a prop bet that the first points of the game would be scored on a safety. If the same lucky bastard was in a squares pool with “Giants 9, Patriots 0″ as his numbers after the first two quarters, he would have made an even bigger fortune. Of course, being in Vegas, chances are all that theoretical money would have been squandered by the time you read this.

- Who the hell works in an office in which a DJ is likely to show up with massive quantities of Bud Light and turn it into a club after the work day is over? I know beer commercials are ridiculous by rule, but this one really took the cake because it was framed in a way to make us believe it could actually happen — unlike, say, a giant train of coldness showing up with the O’Jays playing when you crack open a Coors Light. Those commercials are supposed to be ridiculous. This one tried to be earnest.

- Most people will probably be fixated on the fact M.I.A. flipped off the camera at the end of her performance, but to me the most notable moment of the halftime show was the guy in a toga with “Richard Simmons hair” (as a friend put it) who bounced off of a wire — sometimes appearing to do so with his crotch — as Madonna sang next to him.

- Eli Manning has won more Super Bowls than Peyton Manning. This still boggles the mind. Then again, Trent Dilfer has won more Super Bowls than Dan Marino. And Rex Grossman beat the Giants twice this season.

If you look at it scientifically, the difference between Peyton and Eli’s success isn’t as much based on their personal attributes as the parts around them. New York’s front four on defense, both in 2007 and this year, was just as responsible for the Giants lifting the Lombardi Trophy.

That said, Sunday’s effort has to put Eli in the conversation of history’s most clutch big-game quarterbacks. The ridiculous fourth quarter throw-and-catch to David Tyree in ’07 and Mario Manningham this year can’t be made by just some dope. Eli may just be the current NFL quarterback you’d most like to have when you need a score late in the fourth quarter.

- Bill Belichick may be a coaching genius, but his decision to challenge Manningham’s catch was so poor that it could have been made by Rod Rust. Belichick was right on top of the play, perhaps with an even better angle than the official who ruled that it was a catch. And anyone upstairs who looked at the replay a couple of times would have seen that it was clear Manningham got both his feet down.

I was disappointed that Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth, who I feel know the game better than any other announcing tandem, came to the conclusion that Belichick “had to” challenge the catch. Had the Patriots preserved all of their timeouts, they might have had a minute left to drive into range for a winning field goal instead of having to allow the Giants to score a touchdown in order to get the ball back, thus forcing New England to drive the length of the field for a touchdown.

- Speaking of Ahmad Bradshaw’s winning touchdown… has there ever been a more ungraceful winning score in sports history? NFL Films is going to have an easier time with their annual attempt to make the Browns look good in their yearbook video than make Bradshaw’s attempt to fall down at the 1 before stumbling backwards into the end zone look impressive.

- The last time they tried hosting the Super Bowl in a smallish city, Jacksonville, it was universally derided. (Yes, I am aware that Jacksonville is actually huge in terms of square mileage. You know what I mean). The same cannot be said for Indianapolis, as even the snootiest of possible media markets — Boston and New York — descended upon town and appear to have walked away having enjoyed the experience. Everyone was amazed how accessible everything in Indy is, and most importantly, walkable.

On the flip side, I am willing to bet Super Bowl XLVIII in East Rutherford witnesses multiple disasters since you can’t exactly walk there from New York City, which is undoubtedly where all of the events will be based. One bad winter storm and you’ve got a total logistical nightmare.

Anyway, I’ll be shocked if we don’t see the Super Bowl return to Indianapolis in the next 10 years — if not sooner.

Photo from Newark Star-Ledger. Please visit their website for outstanding game coverage. It’s much easier than visiting Newark.

Yep, that’s conservative radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh in the upper right of the above photo relaxing in New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s suite during Super Bowl XLVI last night. And if you look closely he’s clearly going to town on his nose with his right index finger (If the above photo is too small for you, click to expand it).

Sadly, picking his nose live on television in front of hundreds of millions of people isn’t even in the top 10 of the most disgusting things Limbaugh has done and said over the years.

If that’s not nauseating enough for you, take a gander at Steven Tyler and his leopard print-ish outfit on the bottom left.

Yeesh. It’s gotten to the point where Tyler looks like how I imagine Cher would look minus plastic surgery. At least Tyler wasn’t the most used up and haggard person in the building last night, that award clearly belonged to Madonna.

While Mr. Kraft is a wonderful man by all accounts, I really think he should work on finding classier occupants for his Super Bowl suite.

The Jacksonville Jaguars recently hired Mike Mularkey as their new head coach and it didn’t take long for the first scandal to hit the team’s new head man. Mularkey’s son was among three former University of North Carolina athletes arrested for possession of cocaine on Friday.

Shane Michael Mularkey was arrested along with Nicole Marie Suarez and Jacob Carl Groeschen. The three were spotted on top of a parking deck by Chapel Hill police and appeared to be using cocaine, while drug paraphernalia and a bag with cocaine residue was also found.

The 21-year-old Mularkey played in all 13 games for the school’s football team in 2009, but a school spokesman claims he left the team after the 2010 season. He was a linebacker, who reportedly quit after having shoulder surgery

Suarez was a former member of UNC’s cross country team, but hasn’t been involved with the team since September 2010. And Groeschen was a walk-on quarterback in 2010 and served as a student manager during the 2011 season, but left the Tar Heels after the team played in the Independence Bowl in December.

A Jaguars spokesman says the team knows of the arrest and has said that it is a personal matter and that the team’s head coach had no comment on the subject at this time.

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, who has come across like a massive tool throughout this whole Peyton Manning saga, just tweeted about his veteran quarterback’s health at 1:25 a.m. eastern time.

Irsay had the following to say regarding reports that Manning had been cleared to resume his football career: “Peyton has not passed our physical nor has be been cleared for The Indianapolis Colts. Team statement coming on Friday.”

Now, I’m sorry but why did Irsay even feel the need to take to Twitter and announce this at 1:25 on a Friday morning if a team statement was coming? Personally, I think he must have been hearing from fans that they wanted Manning to return now that he may be healthy.

Irsay has been saying for months that the team’s decision regarding the four-time MVP will be based solely on health. An easy way for him to keep his word would be if Manning just happened to fail the team’s physical.

While Irsay and Manning have publicly claimed that their relationship is sound, I don’t think anyone believes that. Things have been deteriorating for a while, and this late-night announcement from the Colts owner shows that he feels a need to counter any news about Manning with his take on the situation.

This latest incident has finally pushed me into the camp that believes there is no way Manning will ever play for the Colts again.

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has been medically cleared by two doctors – including the man who performed the most recent surgery on the signal-caller’s neck – to resume his NFL career.

Dr. Robert Watkins was one of two men who evaluated Manning and decided he could go back to playing football. Sources claim Watkins recently examined the 35-year-old quarterback in Los Angeles and concluded that the neck is stable. So stable in fact that he would even allow Manning to play football this weekend if necessary.

Watkins advised the quarterback to continue his aggressive rehabilitation, which should make him ready for the beginning of the 2012 season.

Manning’s other doctor, neurosurgeon Dr. Hank Feuer, is reported to have told his patient, “If you were my own son, I’d tell (you) to go play.”

A source also claims that Manning had a throwing session on Tuesday with Colts receivers Anthony Gonzalez and Blair White. Apparently he has been having similar workouts with various receivers lately in an attempt to regain his arm strength.

If he is indeed healthy, Manning’s potential return could put the Colts in an awkward position. The four-time MVP is due a $28 million bonus on March 8 that will trigger the final four years of the five-year, $90 million contract he signed before the 2011 season.

Indianapolis owner Jim Irsay has a difficult decision to make, he has repeatedly claimed that any decision on Manning will be strictly based on the quarterback’s health.

The Colts have the No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 NFL draft and most experts expect them to take Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck, and not trade the selection away. Whatever happens, the franchise simply can’t afford to have both Manning and Luck on the team, it must choose one or the other.

It will be interesting to see how this one turns out now that Manning appears set to return to the game and not retire.

The most mystifying sub-.500 team in the NBA this year is surely the Milwaukee Bucks, who knocked off the Heat for the second time in little over a week on Wednesday night. (If you are mystified by the Knicks being under .500, you know less about basketball than anyone should ever admit).

Milwaukee won 105-97 on Wednesday despite 40 points from LeBron James, 24 of which came in the first quarter. The Bucks also erased a 13-point halftime deficit. And it’s not as if the Heat were doing their three games in three days stretch — Miami had a night off after beating the lowly Hornets on Monday.

One-third of Miami’s losses have now come to Milwaukee.

The Bucks’ 91-82 Jan. 22 win over the Heat was just as improbable — it was Milwaukee’s first road win after starting the year with eight straight losses away from the Bradley Center. That one was a little easier to explain from Miami’s perspective, though, as Dwyane Wade was out with an injury and the Heat were playing their fourth game in seven days.

Frankly this should make Miami Heat tickets a lot easier to get.

Sandwiched between the two wins over the Heat was a 100-89 victory over the Lakers. While this is hardly the typical Laker team, one has to consider the fact the Bucks won that game without Andrew Bogut and Stephen Jackson in the lineup as quite the feat.

As impressive as those wins are, the Bucks also have one of the season’s worst losses — the pathetic Bobcats have secured one-third of their season win total at Milwaukee’s expense. (Charlotte lost to Portland 112-68 on Wednesday night to fall to 3-20. Michael Jordan as an executive is the direct inverse of MJ as a player).

As it stands right now, the Bucks certainly look like a team capable of making it into the playoffs — and one the Heat surely don’t want to run into in the first round.