Straight from the Super Bowl LIX Media Center in New Orleans, the most interesting storylines from around the NFL during Super Bowl Week. Refresh hourly for live updates. New editions daily.
Friday, Feb. 7, 2025
Marino says, “We’ll get there:” The Miami Dolphins haven’t reached the AFC Championship Game since the 1992 season. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2000 and haven’t reached the Super Bowl since Hall of Famer Dan Marino led them there in 1984. Marino told Pat McAfee on Friday that the reason for the Dolphins’ doldrums isn’t the distractions surrounding South Beach. The Pittsburgh native also said the narrative driving Miami’s inability to win in cold weather exists because it’s true, and to change it, they have to win. “I think it’s a narrative that’s there because you got to change the narrative if you want someone to stop talking about it and we haven’t done that, really. I mean even when I played, we’d always try to get homefield advantage so you don’t have to go to Buffalo, you don’t have to go, you know, to Pittsburgh or Kansas City when it’s below zero because we’re not used to playing in that stuff. So, that’s the narrative, that we got to win more games and get homefield advantage.”
What’s the craic, Pittsburgh?: The NFL announced Friday that the Pittsburgh Steelers will serve as the designated home team for the league’s first regular-season game in Ireland. Croke Park in Dublin will host the 2025 contest, against a to-be-determined opponent. The Rooney family, which has owned the team since its inception, emigrated from Ireland in the 1840s and settled in Western Pennsylvania in the 1880s. Art Rooney founded the Steelers as a semi-pro team in the 1920s, oversaw its NFL debut in 1933, and guided the team until his death 1988. Art’s son, Dan Rooney, is a former United States ambassador to Ireland. After Dan passed away in 2017, Art Rooney II took over leadership of the franchise.
True brotherly love: Shannon Sharpe gave his 1997 Denver Broncos Super Bowl ring to his big brother, Sterling. So, the fact that Shannon was the one to break life-changing news to Sterling wasn’t a surprise. Sterling joined Eric Allen, Jared Allen and Antonio Gates in the smallest Hall of Fame class since 2005.
The Offensive Player of the Year curse: Look away, Eagles fans. Saquon Barkley took home the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year at Thursday’s NFL Honors. Winners of that award have not fared well in Super Bowls, however. In this century, Cooper Kupp is the only individual to win that honor and win a Super Bowl in the same season. Kupp won OPOY in 2021, the year he captured the elusive receiving triple crown, then also earned Super Bowl MVP honors in the Rams’ 23-20 victory over the Bengals. But the other seven — Marshall Faulk in 2001, Shaun Alexander in 2005, Tom Brady in 2007, Peyton Manning in 2013, Cam Newton in 2015, Matt Ryan in 2016 and Christian McCaffrey in 2023 — have followed the award with a Super Bowl loss. Prior to Kupp, Faulk in 1999 was the last player to win both OPOY and the Super Bowl in the same season.
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