Classic card of the week

Neil O’Donnell, 1992 Score

In honor of the upcoming Super Bowl, I figured we’d post the card of a Super Bowl quarterback. Not a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, mind you -- my Trent Dilfer cards are locked up tight in a safe somewhere in Switzerland, obviously -- but a Super Bowl quarterback nonetheless. Yes, Neil O’Donnell was the starting quarterback during Super Bowl XXX (a.k.a. the Porn Bowl), which featured the Steelers and the Cowboys (whose own quarterback, coincidentally, had not spent the previous few days in Mexico with the singer Monica.) At the risk of spoiling the surprise, the Cowboys won. But we can’t blame O’Donnell, whose three interceptions -- two of which, if I remember correctly, he threw directly at Cowboys’ defensive back Larry Brown -- immediately led to Dallas scores. (As a result, Brown became the first person in NFL history to be named Super Bowl MVP based solely on the merits of being able to catch a football.) Okay, well…maybe we can blame O’Donnell. But I choose not to. Why? Because of this:



No, that is not a shadow. That is a mullet. An amazing mullet, and one that can only adequately be captured within the confines of a cartoon field goal. Now, mind you, many jokes have been made about mullets. And yes, by this point, everybody gets it -- mullets are ridiculous. Making fun of mullets may have even jumped the shark…who knows. And I don’t know…call me sentimental, but when I turned over this card to check out Neil O’Donnell’s amazing 1991 statistics, a rush of mullet-goodness flowed through my body, and my love of making fun of mullets returned, in one fell swoop. Maybe it’s the combination of the “tough guy face” mixed with a lack of self-awareness that yes, “I have a mullet.” Maybe it’s because this is my favorite kind of mullet -- the part in the front, short sides, no sideburns (perfectly executed very rarely, by the way). Or maybe it’s because -- with the Super Bowl theme we have going on here -- Neil O’Donnell reminded me that Tom Brady is sort of growing a mullet right now. (And also, since the game will be on Fox, this.) Either way, it's arguable that Neil O'Donnell has done more for the mullet than he has done for even Larry Brown.

Not really, but still.

Did you know?
Many of our great nation’s least most successful bloggers entrepreneurs have followed the path of Neil O’Donnell, who is Irish, from NJ, and who went to college in Maryland.