After six months of football, the 2010 NFL season wraps up with Super Bowl XLV later today. The 2011 Super Bowl has a scheduled kickoff time of 3:29pm pacific time on FOX. As the final FOX game of the season we’ll get their number one announcing crew of Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Pam Oliver and Chris Myers.
The big story in this game for Bay Area fans is former Cal star Aaron Rodgers starting at QB for the Packers. Former Cal star Desmond Bishop is also playing, but the ink is primarily focused on Rodgers with good reason. The Packers QB has had a strong run through the postseason helping to lead his team to three straight road wins.
A win in today’s Super Bowl would vault him even further in the discussion of the great quarterbacks currently in the game. Whether it’s fair or not, a Super Bowl title can be a career-maker. Aaron Rodgers can throw for as many touchdowns and yards as Dan Marino, but as Marino knows, no Super Bowl ring will be the first thing to come up in conversation.
This postseason run has been particularly interesting because of the opponents he has defeated. In the wildcard round he knocked off Michael Vick and the Eagles. In the conference championship game he knocked off Jay Cutler and the Bears. Today he gets a chance to defeat Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers. Roethlisberger and Vick have both had significant legal problems, while Jay Cutler has been thrashed by current and former players for his injury issues in the title game.
Compared to those three Aaron Rodgers comes across as an altar boy. You can also add in the fact that Rodgers will officially exorcise the demon of Brett Favre from Green Bay. Rodgers emerged from the shadow of Favre, but a Super Bowl would be the proverbial final nail in the coffin.
We’ll be here all day with updates on Aaron Rodgers, Desmond Bishop and everything else we see in Super Bowl XLV.