Mad World
Godaddy Wraps It Up
By Mark Madden

The NFL censored the Godaddy.com Super Bowl commercial. It aired once in the first half, but got pulled from its scheduled spot during the final two-minute warning because the NFL deemed it inappropriate.

The commercial, ironically, featured a woman testifying before a TV censorship committee who had problems when the spaghetti straps of her filmy top kept snapping. It was poking fun at last year's Janet Jackson fiasco, and I've got to believe the NFL took more offense to that than the ad's harmless jiggle.

I've got a big problem with the spot being pulled. I don't want the NFL censoring what I watch.

Paul Tagliabue lives in the NFL vacuum. Tagliabue and his thought police aren't smart enough to make decisions on my behalf. Furthermore, you see more jiggle in NFL-approved beer commercials. On the sidelines where NFL cheerleaders shake their groove things. The Godaddy.com situation was just selective, mean-spirited censorship.

You might say the NFL has the right to present what it wants on NFL telecasts, but in this case I disagree. That Godaddy.com ad had already been approved by the NFL, or it wouldn't have even run once.

This was a knee-jerk reaction brought on because a few blue-haired old bags found the strength to pick up their phones and complain.

I also didn't like all the flag-waving before the game and at halftime.

First off, I'm not sure what Paul McCartney has to do with the red, white and blue. He's from Liverpool, England.

Second off, what was the point of trotting out the ex-Presidents, and the old war veterans, and flying the B-52s over the stadium like they were on their way to bomb Berlin? What, exactly, did that have to do with football?

It was "Sieg Heil-ing" at Nuremburg. It's exactly the same thing. Mindless patriotism.

Why not bring out some of the great performers from past Super Bowls? Like Bart Starr, or Franco Harris, or Joe Montana, or Troy Aikman? That would have been much more appropriate.

I don't like it when sports and politics are forcibly mixed together, but we see it more and more every day. Whenever they play "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch, I'm spiritually in the clubhouse with Carlos Delgado.

No one objects, though. The kids who should be our latter-day Abbie Hoffmans and Jerry Rubins are too busy playing video games to get involved.

McCartney was great, by the way. Tremendous performance of "Live and Let Die." As long as we're waving the flag, though, I think an American artist would have been better. Why not the Eagles? They couldn't have performed worse than the Philadelphia Eagles.

Speaking of the Philadelphia Eagles, thank God nobody censors Freddie Mitchell. A one-legged Terrell Owens plays like a ninja in the Super Bowl, and all Mitchell could talk about after was the opportunity Owens cost him. A few days after the Super Bowl, Mitchell said "the Patriots are not that good," adding that the Eagles are "the better team" and would beat the Pats "eight times" out of 10.

Mitchell's self-styled nickname is FredEx. That's more apropos than he knows. Pretty soon, he'll be an ex-Eagle.

Did you notice that the Patriots weren't even that exuberant when the clock ran out? Ho hum, we won another Super Bowl.

The most exciting celebratory moment was when Bill Belichick got drenched with Gatorade and his 86-year-old dad, who was standing nearby, got hit with part of it. Surprising an 86-year-old man with a shower of freezing liquid can't be good. You will most assuredly find that under the "don't" list in your senior citizens' cardiopulmonary handbook.

Mark Madden hosts a sports talk show 3-7 p.m. weekdays on ESPN Radio 1250.