I've had just about enough of the two week break between the NFL's Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the 24/7 coverage of Tom Brady, and whatever boot he's wearing on his foot. Honestly, I think ESPN should just do us all a favor and give us what we've all been waiting for: ESPN12 - The Man-Crush.

OK, but seriously, this is getting a little ridiculous. It's not like the NFL needs to hype up the Super Bowl. The game is practically a national holiday. We all know that if you can't quite at least three funny commercials from the telecast, you're most likely un-American. If anything, the elongated break takessome of the wind out of the sails of the game, because it's usually pretty safe to say that it won't be close anyways.

The thing that kills me about Super Bowl media week, though, is the fact that the overall quality of all sports coverage deteriorates during it. Case in point: O.J. Mayo, one of the nation's top college basketball players, is given free tickets by long-time friend, and NBA star, Carmelo Anthony, when the Nuggets played in Los Angeles last Monday.

NowNCAA bylaw 16.11.2.2.3 states that student-athletes may not receive "free or reduced-cost admission to professional athletics contests from professional sports organizations, unless such services also are available to the student body in general."

The idea behind the rule is that college athletes might develop a relationship with an organization or sponsor that could bribe them into joining them. The enforcement of this rule, or even the fact that it was brought up here, though, is ridiculous. I highly doubt that Carmelo Anthonywas acting to bribe Mayo into joining the Nuggets. If anything, Melo's gift was probably (oh my god) an act of friendship.

As if the story isn't pathetic, and desperate enough on the part of news media already, these cases are usually dealt with individually. This means the case will probably be dropped, because the circumstances are so benign. Of course, if the NCAA punishes Mayo for, essentially, acting like anyone else would, then there obviously is a big story there, because that would be a huge lapse of common sense in a rather well-known organization.

The point is, if we didn't have stories like, as ESPN affectionately calls it, "Bootgate," poor content like the Mayo story would never pester sports fans, becauseeditors would realize how irrelevant and unimportant the issue really is. When you have a tabloid-garbage, story like "Bootgate," however, I guess the Mayo story looks pretty good by comparison.

Anyways, I'm done ranting. If anyone's interested, I genuinely believe that the Giants will win Super Bowl XLII. Once again, the New York squad has nothing to lose in this game, seeing as they weren't really supposed to get to this point in the first place. If there's one thing Eli Manning is good at, it's performing when people don't expect anything from him to begin with.

Yes, I'm from New York City, so go ahead and take it with a grain of salt when I say the Giants will end the Patriots perfect season, with a 28-24 upset on Sunday.

Pardon me, the Sunday after next... ugh...