Flag Day

Okay, so that was pass interference. It's just that it was pass interference all game and it wasn't called, so why call it there?

TigerBlog refers, of course, to the end of the NFC Championship Game, when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers got the game-clinching first down on a pass interference call that was 1) no worse than so many others that weren't called before it and 2) on a very, very, very, very late flag.

In the end, it ruined what would have been a dramatic ending had the call not been made, since Green Bay would have gotten the ball back with a chance to get the winning touchdown in the final two minutes. Instead, Tampa easily ran out the clock on a 31-26 win.

Now, you can also argue that Green Bay didn't deserve another chance after kicking a field goal on a fourth-and-goal from the 8 just before the two-minute warning. What was Packers' coach Matt LeFleur thinking?

He needed a touchdown and a two-point conversion, so the odds weren't great. Still, there was no guarantee that the Packers would ever get the ball back and besides, if they did, they still needed a touchdown.

If you're Tampa Bay, what were you thinking when you saw Green Bay send out the field goal team? You were thinking "good," and one of TB's main rules in sports is "never do what the other team wants you to do."

Tampa Bay's trip to the Super Bowl adds another chapter to the extraordinary career of Tom Brady, not that he needed any additional chapters. For Brady to go from winning six Super Bowls in New England and now in his first season - at the age of 43 - to taking Tampa Bay to the big game is incredible.

For the record, it's his 10th Super Bowl after his 14th conference championship game. 

TigerBlog was rooting for Green Bay, of course. And why?

Because the Packers have Princeton alum John Lovett on the team. Lovett, who won a Super Bowl ring last year with Kansas City, was just establishing himself as a key cog on Green Bay's offense when his season ended with a knee injury.

Still, he's on the team, and TB always roots for the Princeton guys.

If you're a Patriots' fan, were you rooting for Brady? Does he have a lifetime pass, even if he left "your" team and led a different one to the Super Bowl while "your" team didn't make the playoffs? 

What percentage of Patriots fans were rooting for Tampa Bay, who, by the way, becomes the first team to play at home in the Super Bowl.

Whenever TB sees a game from Green Bay, he thinks back to his own trip to the city in Wisconsin. Actually, it's not a city at all. 

It's a town, not that much different from Hamilton, which is about 10 miles from Princeton. It's a small suburban town that just happens to have an NFL team there.

TB was there for an in-season basketball tournament with the Princeton men between Christmas and New Year's in 1995. 

Princeton defeated Ohio in the semifinal 65-60. The final went to Wisconsin-Green Bay, by a score of 55-35. 

It was actually a one-point game at halftime, with Green Bay ahead 24-23. Princeton would shoot 4 for 18 in the second half, though, including 0 for 9 from three-point range. 

Not sure if the name is familiar to many anymore, but TB remembers Jeff Nordgaard, who had a 28-point, 13-rebound night in the championship game. Nordgaard went on to play for the Milwaukee Bucks briefly, as well as for a long time in Europe.

That game was played in the Brown County Arena, which is across the parking lot from Lambeau Field. The Princeton hotel was in the same parking lot. You know what TB never saw while he was there? The sun.

Four days after that game, Princeton lost its Ivy League opener against Penn. The Tigers then won 12 straight league games before losing to Penn in the regular season finale. 

Then came some games you might remember - an Ivy playoff win over the Quakers, who had beaten Princeton eight straight prior to that, and then the win over UCLA. It was Pete Carril's last season as Princeton head coach.

Seems like forever ago, right? 

Well, it was a long time ago. You know what happened a few months later? 

Tom Brady was a freshman at Michigan.