Per OMG:

Tim Tebow will play no part in the Super Bowl but his visit to Indianapolis ahead of Sunday’s big game has certainly been eventful.

Tebow enjoyed the festivities at the EA Sports Madden Bowl at the Bud Light Hotel in downtown, pairing with Drew Brees and Jimmy Graham of the New Orleans Saints to win the annual video games competition.

But it was during a conversation with two attractive female servers behind the scenes where the Denver Broncos superstar showed his real sense of humor. Tebow told the ladies, who were taking a break from serving the crowd of around 1,000 guests, that his real name was “Tommy Turbo.”

“He told us he was called Tommy Turbo, not Tebow,” said a waitress named Deborah, 26. “He said it was because he was a really good chess player and played really fast. He was pretty funny and we had a good time talking to him. I know he is famous but he was really friendly and a lot of fun.”

“I actually didn’t know who he was,” said her friend and colleague, Carlina, 25. “He kept saying his name was Turbo and I was like ‘what?’ I don’t know a lot about football.”

Tebow’s popularity has shown no sign of waning following his remarkable series of comeback victories during the regular season and he was mobbed by well-wishers immediately after his arrival in Indianapolis on Thursday morning.

His partnership with Brees and Graham in the Madden NFL 12 event was one of the highlights of his evening and even came with the kind of dramatic fourth quarter comeback that he has become renowned for. “It was great playing with those guys and to get the win,” Tebow told omg! “I am competitive in everything I do and I had a blast.”

Tebow’s Broncos came unstuck against the New England Patriots in both the regular season and the AFC divisional playoff game and the 24-year-old predicted that Tom Brady and his teammates would emerge victorious on Sunday.

“It is going to be a good game on Sunday,” he said. “But for me it is hard to go against Tom Brady.”

Per Shutdown Corner:

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was proud to represent the NFC in Sunday’s Pro Bowl. His team lost, only the third time Rodgers had to undergo such a trauma in the 2011 season.

Though it’s an exhibition game with an unspoken motto of, “Just don’t get hurt,” Rodgers told ESPN Milwaukee he was disappointed in his NFC teammates’ effort.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Rodgers said. “I was a little bit disappointed. I felt like some of the guys on the NFC side embarrassed themselves. [...]

“I wanted to know the plays and I wanted to play well, and I wanted to give the fans a show, and make the Green Bay fans who watched and were watching for me and my teammates, I wanted to make them proud of their Pro Bowlers. I was just surprised that some of the guys either didn’t want to play or when they were in there didn’t put any effort into it.”

Did someone forget to give Rodgers the memo about the Pro Bowl? Aaron, it’s about two things: A) Getting a free trip to Hawaii and B) Not getting hurt. Of course players weren’t going full out. Most of them had not played a game in weeks. They are still healing from the bumps and bruises of the season, and want to avoid getting any more at all costs. They’re at the game to have fun, not memorize a playbook.

Perhaps Rodgers is still smarting about being ousted from the playoffs before winning a single game. Maybe he just needs an outlet for his competitiveness, and he had high hopes for the Pro Bowl. But instead of getting mad at his NFC compatriots, Rodgers should think about installing Words with Friends or Angry Birds on his phone.

Per NY Daily News:

And it’s Manning for the score!

A poll of married women with cheating hearts said they’d prefer to have an affair with Eli Manning, the NY Giant quarterback, than with Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, according to AshleyMadison.com.

In fact, 54% of married women polled said that they’d rather have a dalliance with Manning because of his to his “boy next door” good looks, according to the adultery-promoting company.

Philandering females said they thought Manning would be “less of a hothead” than Brady and easier to relate to.

Manning is married to Abby McGrew, his college sweetheart from his days at University of Mississippi.

Only 46% percent of the women polled said they’d prefer to rendezvous with Brady, who is married to Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

Not surprisingly, the votes came down to home field advantage: 86% of New York women stood by their quarterback, while 97% percent of Boston females chose Brady.

The NFC champ had some some support from Indianapolis — his brother Peyton is a quarterback for the Colts. Seventy percent of homewreckers from Indiana said they’d prefer to get close to his brother Eli.

Per ESPN:

The Carolina Panthers have a new look.

For the first time since joining the NFL in 1995, the Panthers have changed their logo. According to a press release Sunday night, the logo has been designed to provide a “more aggressive, contemporary look to the logo while making it more three-dimensional for ever-increasing digital use.”

The Panthers will transition to the refined logo throughout 2012.

The primary tweaks made by the creative department of the NFL are primarily in the eye and mouth, where the features — particularly the muscular brow and fangs — are more pronounced, giving the panther a more menacing look. The new logo has a darker shade of blue over the black logo, compared to the former logo, which had teal on top of black.

“We have one of the finest and most recognizable logos in the NFL and wanted to make it as modern as possible without losing the dramatic essence of the mark,” team president Danny Morrison said.

Cool design – wonder if the person who created it went to a graphic design college.

The team also will change the primary logotype.

Lawrence Tynes booted the New York Giants into the Super Bowl again.

This should come as no surprise to people who have gone to sports management colleges and predicted it.

Tynes kicked a winning 31-yard field goal in sudden-death overtime, and the Giants beat the San Francisco 49ers 20-17 in the NFC Championship Game on Sunday night to reach its second Super Bowl in five seasons.

Eli Manning and the Giants will face the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI on Feb. 5 in Indianapolis, just as they did when they won it in 2008.

Tynes also kicked the game-winning field goal in overtime at Green Bay in the 2008 NFC title game that put the Giants in the Super Bowl.

Devon Thomas put the Giants in position. He recovered his second fumble of the game after Jacquian Williams stripped the ball from Kyle Williams, the 49ers’ fill-in return man.

Tom Brady has the New England Patriots back in the Super Bowl. And they’ll see a familiar opponent.

The Patriots beat the stunned Ravens 23-20 in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday after Baltimore’s Billy Cundiff missed a 32-yard field-goal attempt with 11 seconds remaining in Foxborough, Mass.

Brady scored the winning touchdown when he leaped over the vaunted Ravens defense in the fourth quarter. The 1-yard dive brought the Patriots from behind, and their maligned defense made several key plays, including shutting down Ray Rice, the league’s total yardage leader.

“This team really overcame a lot, and they fought hard all year,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick told NFL Network’s Michael Lombardi after the game. “It wasn’t always perfect, just like today. We had our moments, but they hung in there and they fought hard. I’m happy for the players. They did a great job today.”

Next up as the Patriots chase their fourth Super Bowl trophy in Brady and Belichick’s tenure in New England are the New York Giants, who defeated New England 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Ariz. This Super Bowl will be held Feb. 5 in Indianapolis.

After Vernon Davis took a page out of the T.O. history book on Saturday against the Saints, we looked into the status of Owens’ IFL deliberations, and we reported that a decision is coming with the next week or so.

It has arrived.

Owens have announced, via a video apparently shot in his house (not to be confused with a press conference in his driveway), that he’s joining the Allen Wranglers of the IFL.

“Uh oh!  It’s official!  It just went down!  I’m headed back to Texas!  That’s right.  IFL, here I come.  Allen, Texas, here I come,” Owens said in a video linked from a Twitter message that says, “The WAIT IS OVER!!  GETCHA POPCORN READY!!”

Owens reportedly will receive compensation in the range of $250,00 to $500,000 from a team whose General Manager, former Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson, has criticized Owens in the past.

The Wranglers begin their season in late February.  Owens tore an ACL during the 2011 offseason, which made him even less attractive as an aging option with a reputation for creating trouble in the locker room.

Owens is sixth on the all-time receiving list, second in receiving yardage with 15,934, and tied for second in touchdowns with Randy Moss at 153.

Per NFL:

The pain Tim Tebow endured in Saturday’s AFC divisional playoff loss to the New England Patriots was more than emotional.

The Denver Broncos quarterback reportedly suffered multiple injuries after he was hit in the pocket during the third quarter of the 45-10 defeat, ESPN.com reported Wednesday.

Tebow tore cartilage along his rib and bruised a lung while suffering fluid buildup in his pleural cavity, a league source told the site.

Tebow, who was 9-for-26 passing for 136 yards against New England, experienced trouble sleeping over the weekend because of the pain and underwent an MRI on his chest on Monday, followed by rehab this week.

It doesn’t appear Tebow will be down for long. He told The Denver Post on Tuesday that he’s already missing daily practices, not to mention the games.

“I was going crazy (Monday),” he said.