Campaign years are all about hedging. Why say something definitive and upset half the country when you can speak in circles and say nothing at all?

That's the strategy President Barack Obama is going with when asked for his Super Bowl XLVI pick:

"I can't call it. I can't call it," Obama said of the New England Patriots-New York Giants game in an ABC News exclusive with Diane Sawyer. "When the [Chicago] Bears are not involved, I can't make predictions because I will get into trouble. But both are great teams. [Tom] Brady obviously one of the best quarterbacks we've ever seen. Eli Manning playing as well as he's ever played, and it's going to be a fun Super Bowl."

On one level, that's exceedingly lame. How can a guy who gives his opinion on a first-round NCAA tournament game between Baylor and Sam Houston State cop out on making a pick for the biggest sporting event of the year?

(Getty Images)

Continuing on a grand tradition of ridiculous Super Bowl prop bets, leading online sports gaming website, Bovada (formerly Bodog), is offering multiple wagers on Kelly Clarkson's rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner." The usual "how long will the anthem be" odds take a backseat this year to a new wager inspired by Christina Aguilera's Super Bowl XLV debacle.

Will Kelly Clarkson forget or omit one word from the national anthem?

Yes (+250)

First, let me explain what "+250" means if you're not familiar with the logistics of wagering. If you put $100 down on Clarkson forgetting a word, there's a 250 percent chance that you have a major gambling problem. (It actually means you win $250 for every $100 wagered.)

The odds are set up to indicate that Clarkson won't forget a word. This fact suggests oddsmakers of the world, like the rest of us, have little respect for Aguilera and Cyndi Lauper. I think that's the safe bet. You'd think if you were singing the next Super Bowl anthem after Aguilera you'd memorize the words like they were your ATM code.

Arizona receiver Juron Criner goes over Alabama's Dequan Menzie to make a catch. (AP)Juron Criner ran a comeback route during full-squad practice on Thursday, only to see that his quarterback was in trouble. Even indoors, in sneakers, on cement, at half speed, the South defense found a way to apply simulated pressure. So Criner drifted toward the back of the "end zone," which really was an orange cone sitting in the middle of a gray slab of floor. The quarterback found him, and Criner extended his arms to make a fine catch. Unfortunately, he was at least 3 yards beyond the cone. "Out of bounds! Out of bounds! No catch!" the defenders yelled, and Criner shrugged and grinned as he tossed the ball back to a coach.

Criner could not do much to impress scouts or coaches during Thursday's practice: with no pads, no cleats and no field, there's not much any player can do to stand out. Luckily for Criner, he did enough during the early part of the week to not worry about whether he could stay "inbounds" in a convention center ballroom.

Criner, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound possession receiver from the University of Arizona, has probably helped his stock more than any other player during Senior Bowl practices this week. He was projected as a late-round pick by most experts before practices started. He has probably worked his way up to the middle rounds.

Criner does not have breakaway speed, but he appears to have the rest of the package. "I'm very agile for a man my size," Criner said after Thursday's practice. That agility was evident earlier in the week, when he made smooth cuts and adjusted to poorly thrown balls in live practices. Criner has also been demonstrating good hands and pass-catching technique, and he looks more fluid and comfortable running routes than some of the other big receivers on the South squad.

Janoris Jenkins (CB, North Alabama), the likely first-round pick who transferred from Florida because of personal issues, singled Criner out as the hardest South receiver to cover this week during his Thursday press conference. "He's kinda got ball skills," Jenkins said. "If you hit his hand, he'll catch it. And he's tall."

Criner caught 82 passes for 1,233 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2010, but missed several weeks of offseason workouts to spend time with his sick mother. Rumors swirled that Criner was himself ill, perhaps gravely ill. He returned to the Wildcats in mid-August, only to have an appendectomy on Sept. 5. Criner was back on the field three weeks later, and ended the season with 75 catches for 956 yards and 11 touchdowns.

The offseason health issues may leave Criner undervalued on many draft boards: the "serious illness" rumor was out of control for a while, and it may have conflated into a "character issue" for armchair analysts. Criner's lack of pure speed is a more legitimate knock against him: He is a possession receiver, not a game breaker. There are also questions about an Arizona offense that gave Criner tons of open space to operate. "I didn't see very much press," Criner admitted about his college career in a no-huddle offense. "I was already lined up, got my signal from the quarterback, and I could just go."

Yes, other potential MVPs can be added in time for shipping. (DKC)

Lead time concerns have largely disappeared in the Internet era, but there are certain manufacturing concerns that do slow time down to a degree. For example, when you shoot reel after reel of the best football film anywhere at a Super Bowl, cut it to highlight quality, move music and announcers' voices in, throw it on a million or so DVDs, and send it out to the joyous fans whose team just won the biggest game — or, the fans of the losing team, who want to torture themselves with that turnover, missed field goal, or horrible call that set their guys on the wrong path.

To speed that process along, NFL Films has already put together the covers for the Super Bowl XLVI highlights DVDs. And in consideration for either the Giants or Patriots winning, there are covers celebrating each team. This is the first place you'll see them, and you can thank our buddies at Films, Vivendi Entertainment and DKC for that.

From the press release:

Just 30 days following the big game, Vivendi Entertainment, the National Football League (NFL) and NFL Films will team up to bring NFL fans of the winning city the most sought after sports DVD release of the year when Super Bowl XLVI Champions DVD hits stores on March 6, 2012.   Super Bowl XLVI Champions DVD will be available in Standard Definition (SD) for $24.99 SRP and on Blu-Ray™ (BD) Hi Def for $34.93 SRP.

With its award-winning video and photography NFL Films captures all the non-stop action-packed season, playoff and Super Bowl XLVI highlights, exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes footage every die-hard fan desires.  Super Bowl XLVI Champions DVD allows fans to relive the incredible journey of their favorite team from training camp, through the regular season and playoffs and finally culminating with the glorious Super Bowl victory in Indianapolis.

Sounds good — I've been an NFL Films junkie since I was a little kid, and I obviously love this stuff. On the Patriots' DVD cover, there's Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. On the Giants' cover, it's Eli Manning, Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz. That's all well and good, and the Super Bowl MVP could easily be one of those guys.

But here's my question: What if the Super Bowl MVP is someone completely unexpected? What if Giants rotational D-lineman Dave Tollefson breaks the Super Bowl sack record and gets the car? Do they feature him on the shrinkwrap? Maybe they can include a gag reel of the best obscene phone calls Tollefson receives from his mom to hype him up on gamedays. Or, what if Patriots running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis rushes for 200 yards and shocks the world? Perhaps Films could stick a "Boston Legal" DVD in the package to make it right?

Getty ImagesAs part of our ongoing hard-hitting coverage of Super Bowl XLVI, we bring you this important news: The married ladies surveyed by AshleyMadison.com say they'd prefer to have an affair with Eli Manning over Tom Brady, by a margin of 54 percent to 46 percent.

It's not a huge margin of victory, but this time of year, there's no such thing as winning ugly.

Much like in the actual Super Bowl, I'd have thought Tom Brady would've been a favorite here. He's got the dashing good looks ‒ and that's not even my subjective opinion. Brady's a spokesman for fashionable Ugg boots. He's done the magazine spreads holding baby goats. He landed the world's hottest supermodel. These are not things that happen to people who look like Quasimodo.

But Eli got the W anyway. The guy just wins. Here's the lame explanation as to why:

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.

You want to know why so many married women prefer Eli to Handsome Tom? I'll tell you why.

Update: We were erroneous in assuming that this team store in question had anything to do with the Baltimore Ravens, their website, or their team store. The team has confirmed this with us, and we regret the error, as well as any misunderstanding that came from the original post.

It appears that someone out there with an unofficial website is still upset about the 32-yard field goal that kicker Billy Cundiff missed wide left at the end of the AFC championship game. That miss prevented a tie that would have taken the game to overtime in the New England Patriots' eventual 23-20 win.

So, someone with a site and a grudge put up the following example of retail humor:

Billy Cundiff web store

Princess the camel (AP)Remember Paul the octopus who could accurately predict the winners of World Cup games? Paul's dead now, but his gift lives on through a camel in New Jersey.

Princess, a Bactrian camel in a New Jersey zoo, picks Super Bowl winners. She's nailed five of the last six Lombardi Trophy winners and she went 14-6 in the regular season.

Here's how the majestic two-humped beast works her magic: John Bergmann, the zoo's general manager, presents her with two crackers; each one with a team's name written on it. In this case, of course, the crackers represented the Giants and Patriots. The cracker she eats first represents her pick.

On Wednesday (drum roll) … she scarfed down the Giants cracker.

A New Jersey resident favoring the Giants ‒ I can hear you now. You suspect hometown bias. I assure you that's unlikely, because the Bactrian camel is native to the deserts of central Asia. Also, we're talking about a camel here, so just calm down.

Peyton Manning and Jim Irsay, back when they kept it "in-house." (Getty Images)

Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star, who has been all over the dialogue between Peyton Manning and Jim Irsay since Manning fired the first salvo earlier this week, now believes that the Manning Era in Indy is over — and judging by Manning's Thursday comments to Kravitz in an exclusive interview, it's pretty easy to guess that if No. 18 ever plays another down of professional football, it will be in another team's uniform.

Manning was asked to respond to the comments made by Irsay, the team's owner, after the Thursday press conference announcing the hire of new head coach Chuck Pagano. Irsay was unhappy about Manning's take on the Colts' current organizational upheaval and told Kravitz so, leading to Irsay's preference that the quarterback keep things in-house. Manning's response:

"At this point, Mr. Irsay and I owe it to each other and to the fans of the organization to handle this appropriately and professionally, and I think we will. I've already reached out to Mr. Irsay. I wasn't trying to paint the Colts in a bad light, but it's tough when so many people you've known for so long are suddenly leaving. I feel very close to a lot of these guys and we've done great things together. It's hard to watch an old friend clean out his office. That's all I was trying to say."

Irsay called Manning a "politician," implied that he was campaigning (which is exactly what Manning said he wasn't trying to do in his previous interview), and sounded for all the world like a man who was quite ready to move on with a much-needed team rebuild without the drama inherent in Manning's potential — but by no means certain — recovery from neck injuries and surgeries that have caused still-healing nerve impingements.