and here are some more random thoughts about the Super Bowl:

Personally, this one was more satisfying than SB 31.  That one was awesome since it had been so long since the last championship (and well before my time), but the Packers were heavy favorites to win pretty much all year, and more or less dominated.  It was sort of expected that they would win it all.  This season, while they started out as pre-season favorites, injuries and some losses made it look as though it just wasn't our year.  Beginning with the Giants game, having to win 5 consecutive weeks or be eliminated from the playoffs just to GET TO the big game, and then win it, was pretty spectacular.

I wonder if Nick McDonald is going to go the way of Lindsay Knapp from the '96 team - play 3 or so years as a backup, then go off and get a "real" job, but always be able to say he is a Super Bowl champion, and have the ring to prove it!

Matty Flynn now has TWO championship rings! (LSU and SB 45).

Howard Green is an enormous man... and it must feel pretty damn sweet to have gotten cut by the Jets, only to get picked up by the Packers and get immediate revenge on the Jets, and then wind up with a ring.

In 2000 a cab driver in Las Vegas told me Charlie Batch was going to wind up being a better pro quarterback than Peyton Manning.  that is relevant to nothing, except I recall seeing a shot of Charlie holding the clipboard on the sideline and thought "wow.... he's still in the league?"

a waitress at the Packer bar in San Diego I was at was rocking a Ken Ruettgers jersey (and it might have been signed), which trumped my Don Beebe jersey

and finally, Evan Dietrich-Smith was signed in LATE DECEMBER, and not only got to participate in the SB, but gets a ring!  Dellenbach played for about half the season and playoffs for the '96 team and was an old veteran, but I still found the similarities noteworthy