A New Low: This Morning in the New York Media

Every morning, I stop off at a deli by my office for a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich. Start the day off right, I always say.

While I'm waiting for my sausage and eggs to congeal, I usually peruse the New York Post. Only slightly more reputable than The Weekly World News, I always find the articles good for a laugh. The front page this entire week has, to no surprise, been Super Bowl-related, with non-story after non-story on display to anyone with nothing better to do for five minutes while they wait for their daily influx of fat, grease, and cholesterol. The front page on Monday was a story about how good Eli Manning looked stepping off the plane in Indianapolis. Yesterday's front page had a picture of Victor Cruz in a sombrero. You get the idea; it's not exactly award-winning journalism, but I'm not judging. There is shock and humor value in these articles, and the Boston media is lousy with papers like this as well. The Post is the Chris Farley to the The New York Times' David Spade, and you have to just see it for what it is.

However, I did want to share this morning's front page with the Pulpit, only because I think it perfectly exemplifies how little all of this Super Bowl hype really means. The first thing I saw this morning, in massive, block letters, was the headline:

NOT A PRAYER!

Underneath was a picture of Tommy B and Missus Tommy B in their evening wear, looking as wonderful as you would expect the world's most attractive couple to look.

Of course, I had to read further. I thought it was going to be a piece abouty how maybe marrying Giselle has made Brady soft and how he's lost his competetive edge or something like that - but I couldn't have been more wrong. The article was actually making fun of what they called "a disgustingly sappy email" that Giselle wrote to her friends and family, asking them to pray for her husband's well-being as he enters one of the biggest games of his career.

Here is the email, in its entirety:

My sweet friends and family,

This Sunday will be a really important day in my husband’s life. He and his team worked so hard to get to this point and now they need us more than ever to send them positive energy so they can fulfill their dream of winning this super bowl ...

So I kindly ask all of you to join me on this positive chain and pray for him, so he can feel confident, healthy and strong. Envision him happy and fulfilled experiencing with his team a victory this Sunday.

Thank you for your love and support. Love, G :)

The story went on to talk about how this is basically a plea for divine intervention and how Gisele clearly isn't confident that her widdle Tommy is going to be able to stand up to Big Blue's unstoppable, terrifying, borderline-illegal pass rush.

Now maybe it's just me...but all I took out of that email was that a loving wife is asking her closest friends and family to pray for her husband and wish his team the best as they stand on the verge of greatness.

While I do think it's a little shady to publish an email that was intended for close friends and family (how it leaked I have absolutely no idea - I guess money talks), I don't bring this up because it upset me or because I think this is a cheap shot by the New York Media. I'm sure that there are equally ridiculous articles going around about the Giants in the Boston Tabloids as well this week. All this piece did for me was remind me that literally every word I have read so far for the past two weeks means absolutely nothing. All of the confidence, all of the "trash talk," all of the analysis, all of the simulations, all of the data, all of the statistics and probabilities, all of the winner-calling camels and octopuses and dogs - none of that means a damn thing. The only thing that matters is how two teams play on Sunday.

I'd pray for the media to just shut the hell up for a change - but we all know there is no chance of that happening.