You couldn't blame tight end Shannon Sharpe for reacting bluntly.

His Baltimore Ravens had just defeated the Oakland Raiders, 16-3, in a game in which Sharpe had a 96-yard touchdown reception. The media hacks didn't seem to care--they were already asking him just how ugly the Super Bowl was going to be. A title match between the Ravens and the New York Giants would pit two offenses as conservative as John Ashcroft against each other. Wouldn't such a low-scoring affair upset the fans?

Sharpe simply looked up into the cameras and said, "Deal with it, America."

Shannon Sharpe, you have shown me something!

You're obviously a smart man, Shannon--not just because, as your Schwab commercial tells us, you know how to calculate a P/E ratio. You also know that the American public has no idea what it wants out of the Big Game.

Why is everyone so damn down on Super Bowl XXXV? So what if the Raven offense is about as pretty as a pre-makeover Katherine Harris? So what if a team made up of Harvard proctors could probably slap together a more exciting offensive attack than the Giants--even if they put that really droopy-eyed guy in at quarterback?

The bottom line is that this will be a great defensive battle, and the beauty of defensive battles is that they always go down to the wire. Great finishes don't happen often in high scoring games.

Remember Superbowl XXIX, when the 49ers shellacked the Chargers, 49-26? How about the Cowboys' 52-17 drubbing of the Bills in 1993? Awesome games! Blowouts, sure. They were over right after the national anthem. But there sure were lots of touchdowns, and everyone loves touchdowns!