Jason Witten wins the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award. Nice clips and tributes to Payton who passed away in 1999. Doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but there you go. At one point I owned a Payton RC
The Sandy Hook kids choir and Jennifer Hudson are singing "America the Beautiful". Noting beats Ray Charles, but the kids were sure fun. Not a big fan of Ms. Hudson, but she looks incredible, and I think it's a nice tribute to all those who have lose their lives in senseless tragedies due to gun violence.
Some of the Ravens are getting pretty emotional, they might have the edge in terms of really wanting to win the big game.
Alicia Keys doing the National Anthem. I've always known there were three other verses of the Star Spangled Banner, I looked them up just a few weeks ago, they are much more powerful than the one verse that we all know and love Check it out:
O say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave
I'm not a big fan of Ms. Keys but she did a nice soulful rendition.
The latest HOFers will be out in a minute for the coin flip. We're now at the point in my personal football watching career that I actually saw the modern inductees play their entire career. In fact I remember Draft Day for Warren Sapp who dropped because of a weed test. UCLA Alum Ogden had a wonderful career.
2013 inductees;
Larry Allen
Cris Carter
Jonathan Ogden
Warren Sapp
Bill Parcells
Curly Culp
Dave Robinson
Baltimore wins the toss and defers. Time for Kickoff!
