First of all, congrats to the New York Giants for beating the unbeatable New England Patriots. I almost feel bad for Tom Brady, but not really…

Tom Brady’s name is already chiseled in the NFL record books, with or without an undefeated season credited to his arm. The Hall of Fame will reveal he’s already directed three Super Bowl victories before he turned 30. But if Brady wants to become a real NFL war hero, he needs a enemy. Nothing could add more drama than a pair of gun slinging brothers: Eli Manning and Payton Manning. Sports writers and historians are going to have a lot of fun writing this story over and over again.

Payton looks to Eli in the stands and chuckles at his chance to fulfill their childhood fantasy of clubbing Terry Bradshaw in the head with a trophy.

Second, the world should know that the NFL played tricks with the cameras last night. As the game was beginning, they showed an aerial shot of the setting sun igniting the sky behind the distant mountains west of Phoenix. My pride in our city’s natural beauty was interrupted by reality: I looked out the window and saw the sun low in the sky peaking through the clouds, but it was no where near the horizon. We had another hour or so before the sun would set. If anything, the sun would set first in our part of town, even if by just a few seconds.

I pointed out this inconsistency to the crowd in the room. Neil explained that it was cloudy, and maybe it messed with the cameras on the blimp or something. Soon it was time to watch the game, and we all forgot about it. We continued eating nachos.

Then later in the 2nd quarter we had a second aerial shot of the stadium, except this time the stadium was a beacon of light in the dark of the night. I looked out the window, and the street lights hadn’t even flickered on yet. What’s the deal? The consensus in the room was that the NFL grabbed the sunset and city light shots on Saturday night. My guess was that the NFL sped-up the setting sun to make the fans in New York and Boston feel less disoriented by spinning earth. They needed to know that their boys were close to home.

I know that people will act like they already knew that camera crews mess with the space-time-continuum all the time, but who really knows that? The facts of Fox’s “creative editing” of the Super Bowl footage is as new to me as it is to everyone else.

On a final note, this game will complicate the politics at the ESPN office. Their headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut, is 2 hours and 10 minutes from both New York City and Boston. I expect that it’ll be an intense day at the office.