Post-Gazette

Mike Tomlin calls it the sticky Lombardi because of all the handprints that stick to the trophy after the NFL commissioner awards it to the new Super Bowl champions.

Teams seeking revenge for a previous Super Bowl loss don't always find it. Just ask the Dallas Cowboys, Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills.

Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers won the 2011 Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player award in a landslide. Rodgers earned 48 votes to two for New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees in balloting by a nationwide panel of 50 media members who regularly cover the NFL.

Fantasy league types will want to pay particular attention to one Super Bowl commercial today. The league will run an ad introducing the "Perfect Challenge," a deceptively simple new fantasy game that will begin next season. Each week, participants must pick an eight-player lineup out of the entire NFL.

The road for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2012, selected here Saturday and inducted in Canton, Ohio, this summer, must go through Pittsburgh. Of the six new Hall of Famers, four have strong Pittsburgh connections. Among those elected were former Steelers Jack Butler and Dermontti Dawson, and former Pitt Panthers Curtis Martin and Chris Doleman.

The legend of New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski includes the most scrutinized left ankle in town, a nickname befitting a caveman and hands as large as a cereal box. Or a laptop. Or a legal pad. Put them all together and it helps explain to some degree why his was the overriding story line this week.

Considering how many books on pro football are released every year, it's eye-opening that a definitive biography of the best man ever to take a snap from center has never been published. That man, of course, is Bart Starr, and if you didn't know that, then it is especially important that you read "America's Quarterback" by Keith Dunnavant, the most important book on pro football this season.

Of the six new Hall of Famers chosen today, four have strong Pittsburgh connections.

Of the six new Hall of Famers chosen today, four have strong Pittsburgh connections.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Three decades after his Coke commercial won advertising's version of the Oscar, Joe Greene and his No. 75 Steelers jersey make a comeback in another Super Bowl spot on television. The new commercial relies heavily on the old one, only the Coke bottle has been replaced by a container of Downy Unstopables laundry product.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Count Joe Greene among those happy to see the Steelers move to change their approach on offense. "If it doesn't feel good, you have to change it and, basically, it wasn't feeling good," Greene said Friday. "It wasn't feeling good in '09, and it wasn't feeling good in 2011."

INDIANAPOLIS -- Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks and other New York Giants receivers can't wait to go against the New Englands Patriots' Julian Edelman Sunday in Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium. And why not? Edelman, wide receiver-return man, also plays in the secondary, a position he's still learning.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Three decades after his Coke commercial won advertising's version of the Oscar, Joe Greene and his No. 75 Steelers jersey make a comeback in another Super Bowl spot on television.

Hines Ward talked to Mike Tomlin on Monday at the Steelers facility on the South Side and to team president Art Rooney II earlier, letting them know he wants to play in 2012 in Pittsburgh.

One word from Giants special teams captain Zak DeOssie will begin Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium. With more than 100 million people watching in the United States alone, the long snapper from New York, other Giants captains and their counterparts from New England will see referee John Parry display both sides of a special commemorative coin for the opening toss.

Picked on as a youth by other kids in Georgia because he is biracial, Hines Ward stands tall as someone who was able to overcome prejudice and bullying to find success.

The helmet-to-helmet shot knocked Tony Dorsett out cold in the second quarter of a 1984 Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles game, the hardest hit he took in his Hall of Fame NFL career. "It was like a freight train hitting a Volkswagen," Dorsett says now. "Did they know it was a concussion?" he asks rhetorically in an interview with The Associated Press. "They thought I was half-dead."

The PG's gridiron guru makes his pick on who will hoist the Lombardi Trophy come Sunday night ...

Jerry Olsavsky not only played nine seasons with the Steelers, he has spent the past two seasons as a defensive assistant on Mike Tomlin's staff. Had linebackers coach Keith Butler decided to go to Indianapolis as the Colts' defensive coordinator, Olsavsky, 43, would have been the likely candidate to replace him.