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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The North Texas Super Bowl Committee and the NFL unveiled the logo for Super Bowl XLV on Thursday morning, displaying Cowboys Stadium in the background with the Vince Lombardi Trophy sitting on top of the Roman numerals for the game.

Courtesy of The NFLThe Super Bowl XLV logo was unveiled for the 2011 game at Cowboys Stadium.

There is a new logo for every Super Bowl, but starting with the 2011 Super Bowl, the theme of the logo will basically remain the same. The only differences from year to year are the stadium backdrop and the Roman numerals for the game.

NFL officials looked at eight designs before recently finalizing their choice. The NFL didn’t present it to North Texas officials until last week.

“It’s a unique mixture of icons that represents what this whole thing is all about. It’s well done,” said Bill Lively, the president and CEO of the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host committee. “We’ve approached our mission not just for 45 but for many, many [Super Bowl] games to come.”

The NFL also announced it’s changing its postseason logo system and trophies.

The AFC and NFC Championship Game trophies will change from a brown base with an ‘A’ or ‘N’ on top of it surrounded by players layered on a wall, to silver trophies in the make of a football.

Playoff logos also will change to reflect the football as a trophy.

All of the new logos and trophies will take effect starting with the 2010 season.

“We feel that 45 is a special year,” said Mark Waller, chairman of marketing for the NFL. “It feels like it’s the perfect time to launch it.”

Calvin Watkins covers the Cowboys for ESPNDallas.com.

The NBA would like to think that Kobe and LeBron can compete with Tom and Peyton Plus Eight , but Kobe’s Colorado baggage, LeBron’s tattoo sleeves and childish behavior undercut their transcendent mainstream power to make America stop what it’s doing to watch them compete.

One man was a bigger star than Manning and Brady individually and collectively, and that man, along with the National Enquirer, his Swedish wife, a slew of attention-starved bimbos, a poorly positioned fire hydrant and TMZ, torched his reputation Thanksgiving night.

If Manning and the Colts win Sunday’s Super Bowl, he officially supplants Tiger Woods as our most revered and influential athlete. The NFL is already preparing for this eventuality. Colts owner Jim Irsay has vowed to redo Manning’s contract this offseason. A signing bonus eclipsing $50 million is likely.

And you think a lockout is a possibility?

The NFL has been working toward this moment for two decades. The league has geared its rules to make as many of its quarterbacks superstars as possible. There’s a reason a defender can’t hit a QB without first raising a hand and asking a ref for permission. There’s a reason John Madden and every other Madden wannabe spent/spend so much time hyping Favre, Manning, Brady, Brees and all the rest.

Quarterbacks move the needle. They have to be healthy and putting up big passing numbers to push ratings. The NFL figured out a long time ago it works best as a QB league rather than an RB league.

Favre and Manning can play for decades and never miss a game. They’re always in the playoffs.

Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, Earl Campbell, O.J. Simpson and Eric Dickerson — the five best running backs of the Super Bowl era — combined to play 53 seasons, and in those seasons they appeared in 29 playoff games, won 10, rushed for 100-plus yards six times and William “The Refrigerator” Perry has more Super Bowl TDs than all five of them.

Should we compare the great running backs to the great QBs of the Super Bowl era — Elway, Montana, Brady, Manning and Favre?

The numbers are stupid. Elway alone has 22 playoff games, 14 postseason victories, four 300-yard passing games and six postseason RUSHING touchdowns.

It’s a quarterback league. And now the NFL owns the biggest star (Manning) and brightest stars ( Tom and Peyton Plus Eight ) in all of sports.

There’s no Jordan, Magic, Bird, Tyson, Tiger, Gretzky or Bonds to steal attention away.

The NFL is going to ride Manning, 33, until the wheels fall off. If it doesn’t, Goodell will go down in history as an incompetent leader whose claim to fame was keeping strip clubs safe from Pacman Jones.

You can e-mail Jason at BallState0@aol.com or follow him on Twitter .

All the posturing about an NFL lockout in 2011 is just that — posturing.

There won’t be a lockout. If there is, Roger Goodell should be institutionalized, examined by a team of psychiatrists, removed from office and replaced by Pacman Jones.

Starting today — with NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith’s Super Bowl press briefing and culminating with Goodell’s Friday address — you’re about to be inundated with stories about a looming lockout.

Ignore them. The owners — and their paid mouthpiece, Goodell — are not nearly as stupid as they’ll sound and look over the next year.

Yeah, they hired the genius attorney, Bob Batterman, who oversaw the “successful” NHL lockout that helped make professional hockey more irrelevant. Yes, the NFL negotiated TV contracts that pay the league even if there is no 2011 season. And, yes, there are a handful of owners — Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson, Jacksonville’s Wayne Weaver and Minnesota’s Zygi Wilf — too incompetent to turn a large profit in a league that prints money.

But short of Wilson, Weaver and Wilf executing an assassination plot of Jerry Jones, Daniel Snyder, Paul Allen and most of their other peers, there is zero chance of a lockout.

You don’t hit the eject button at the very moment the league is about to land on the moon.

That’s the message Goodell should be and will be communicating privately to the owners whining about the “bad” collective bargaining agreement his predecessor, Paul Tagliabue, and Smith’s predecessor, Gene Upshaw, struck in 2006.

Whatever discomfort billionaire NFL owners might have with sharing more than half of their total revenue with millionaire players, the owners will get over it when Goodell explains what their partnership with players has wrought.

The popularity, TV-ratings-driving and cultural-influence distances between the NFL and Major League Baseball and the NFL and the NBA have never been wider.

The Pro Bowl — the most worthless sporting event known to man, a game ditched by 40 percent of the roster this year — garnered massive ratings on ESPN. The NFL is a force of nature right now.

No way it does anything to slow its momentum. No one — not the owners, players or television executives addicted to NFL ratings — is pumping the NFL brakes. Not now. Not when the league has a finite number of years to ride the Peyton Manning-Tom Brady-Brett Favre gravy train.

Guess when David Stern locked out NBA players? Months after Michael Jordan’s second retirement.

An NFL work stoppage in 2011 would be the equivalent of baseball shutting down midway through the summer of 1998 (McGwire-Sosa) or the NBA calling it quits just before Magic and Bird met in the 1984 NBA Finals.

You don’t pull the plug on Manning and Brady, the most compelling reality TV stars this side of Jon and Kate.

Major League Baseball certainly doesn’t have a competiator for Manning and Brady or Brees and Favre or Romo and Roethlisberger or (Eli) Manning and McNabb or even Rivers and Rodgers.

UNION CHANGING ITS TUNE? Although the NFL would not comment, a league source questioned whether the NFLPA was now changing its tune with bargaining for a new CBA going on. “They have been telling their players and others for years that they are getting 60%,” said the source. “Now they are changing the definition of total revenue to make the percentage look smaller. They know the real dollar numbers and how the players have gotten a huge windfall in the current CBA.” Many labor and sports business experts have said it is nearly impossible to make an apples-to-apples comparison because of how revenues are calculated and what costs are taken out before determining revenues. For example, in the NFL, costs such as the cost of making a T-shirt are deducted before calculating the revenue the T-shirt brings in. The NFL CBA also provides that the union give the league credits for stadium construction, above and beyond the 5% for other costs including general operating costs. That amount is about $1B, according to Mawae and Smith’s letter, and the 51.3% in the letter refers to actual dollars.

The NFLPA has made a proposal to the NFL that would cut league costs, including a three-year maximum length on rookie deals that would save $200M, but the NFL is insisting that players take a more than 20% pay cut without offering financial reasons to back it up, said Titans C and NFLPA President Kevin Mawae. “We have offered solutions. We are the ones that offered the rookie (3-year maximum length), saving $200M,” Mawae said, referring to the NFLPA’s proposal which would reduce compensation committed in multi-year contracts to rookies each year by $200M. He added, ”We introduced ideas to get (costs out of) the revenue stream. But it keeps coming back, ‘Unless you take a 20% player cost cut, we can’t do a deal.’” NFL officials were not available for comment. However, when the league was asked if it was true that it told the NFLPA that it could not do a deal unless the players agreed to a 20% cut, it said, “No.” The NFLPA is set to hold its annual Super Bowl press conference today, and although union officials would not reveal details, it is expected that the union will tell its financial story to the press corps. That story, according to Mawae and other sources, is that the NFL is essentially asking the players to shoulder more costs, including normal operating costs, without providing any financial data regarding if clubs are losing money because of their costs.

SHOW US SOME PROOF: Mawae said, “This has always been our point: You want 20% player cost cutbacks, show us the information and the data that would justify you asking to cut costs. And they haven’t done that. They have asked for an 18% rollback from players, plus the 5% that is already cut out before you figure out the total football revenue (which determines the salary cap).” Mawae is referring to the little-known fact that 5% is taken off the top for a number of expenses including “team operating and day-of-game expenses,” according to the current NFL CBA. “We found that after cost deductions and the 5% deductions, it’s almost a billion dollars that is not in the total football revenue,” he added. It has been widely reported that NFL players appear to receive the highest percentage of revenues — at just under 60% – compared to players in the other team sports. Late NFLPA Exec Dir Gene Upshaw said publicly that the players were receiving 59-60%. But in a recent letter to NFLPA player reps, NFLPA Exec Dir DeMaurice Smith wrote, “Last year, the NFL Players received 51.3% of Real Revenue.”

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla., Feb. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – AARP and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) today announced they will work together to encourage volunteerism, service, community involvement and giving back. As part of this new alliance, former and current NFL players will join AARP Create The Good to become service ambassadors in their local communities through a variety of activities in 2010.

(Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070209/NYF043LOGO )

The NFLPA and AARP made the announcement today at the annual NFLPA Super Bowl press conference in Ft. Lauderdale. Host of Super Bowl XLIV, CBS NFL Today and AARP’s Community Ambassador, James “JB” Brown has been involved with the Create The Good initiative since its launch in 2009 and will help recruit players for service initiatives throughout the year.

“We are excited about this new collaboration between AARP and the NFL Players Association. All NFL players, both active and retired, believe in the importance of giving back to their communities and AARP’s Create The Good initiative will allow our players to continue the good work they do alongside the fans who cheer them on,” said DeMaurice Smith, NFLPA Executive Director.

AARP Create The Good (www.CreateTheGood.org) is a network of people sharing tools and ideas to help make a difference on their own or in larger groups in their communities. It is powered by AARP and the AARP Foundation’s more than nine million volunteers, donors and activists.

Beginning in April 2010 — National Volunteer Month — NFLPA players will participate in Create The Good service activities in 17 communities around the country. The NFLPA will also work with Create The Good on two additional national service events scheduled later in 2010.

“There’s a new spirit of service sweeping the country and Americans of all ages are rallying to improve our country and our communities,” said Barbara Quaintance, SVP of AARP’s Volunteer and Civic Engagement Office. “By bringing players out into the communities, we hope to engage more and more people and get them motivated to lend a helping hand.”

The NFLPA has a history of encouraging its players to give back to local communities, and for the last seven years has partnered with JB to recognize those who exemplify dedication and commitment to team and community with the JB Awards. Each year, a select group of players are invited to the NFL Players Gala Featuring the JB Awards, an awards presentation hosted by JB himself to honor their individual contributions to their communities.

Now, through Create The Good, the NFLPA and JB are once again teaming up to provide opportunities for people in communities nationwide to join current and former NFL players and get involved in community projects.  In the coming months, Create The Good and the NFLPA will announce additional details about the events scheduled in 2010.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled to see AARP and the NFLPA come together on such an important and critical topic,” said Brown. “I’m proud to be part of Create The Good and as AARP’s national Community Ambassador, I look forward to working with the NFL Players Association to help spread the message about the importance of getting involved and taking action.”

One man’s treasure is another man’s NFL odds treasure. At least that was the case with S Darren Sharper during the last off-season. And what an amazing journey it’s been for a man who went from an NFL odds has-been prior to the 2009 season all the way to the Pro Bowl and a key component of the Saints Super Bowl betting hopes.

Few teams in the NFL odds were interested in Sharper as an unrestricted free agent last season but the Saints, this year’s NFC rep in the Super Bowl betting odds took the chance on the aging safety and the rest is NFL odds history. Sharper led the league in INTs this season with 9, and also led the NFL odds with INTs returned for TDs (3).

It’s hard to imagine the Saints playing in the Super Bowl betting odds without him. He has been huge for this defense and arguably the best safety in the NFL this season. He will have to have a huge game in the Super Bowl betting contest if the Saints are going to win. The Saints will have to create turnovers (something they lead the NFL in with 46 TOs including the playoffs) if they want to win on Sunday.

But Peyton Manning is not a QB prone to INTs and had a TD/INT ratio in the regular season of 33/16. In the playoffs it’s an even more impressive 5/1 against much better defenses that the Saints. Sharper must get at least one pick or create an INT for his teammates for New Orleans to win the Super Bowl betting. Aside from Drew Bress, Sharper might be the second most important Saint on the field and he’s going to have to play like it.

One man’s treasure is another man’s NFL odds treasure. At least that was the case with S Darren Sharper during the last off-season. And what an amazing journey it’s been for a man who went from an NFL odds has-been prior to the 2009 season all the way to the Pro Bowl and a key component of the Saints Super Bowl betting hopes.

Few teams in the NFL odds were interested in Sharper as an unrestricted free agent last season but the Saints, this year’s NFC rep in the Super Bowl betting odds took the chance on the aging safety and the rest is NFL odds history. Sharper led the league in INTs this season with 9, and also led the NFL odds with INTs returned for TDs (3).

It’s hard to imagine the Saints playing in the Super Bowl betting odds without him. He has been huge for this defense and arguably the best safety in the NFL this season. He will have to have a huge game in the Super Bowl betting contest if the Saints are going to win. The Saints will have to create turnovers (something they lead the NFL in with 46 TOs including the playoffs) if they want to win on Sunday.

But Peyton Manning is not a QB prone to INTs and had a TD/INT ratio in the regular season of 33/16. In the playoffs it’s an even more impressive 5/1 against much better defenses that the Saints. Sharper must get at least one pick or create an INT for his teammates for New Orleans to win the Super Bowl betting. Aside from Drew Bress, Sharper might be the second most important Saint on the field and he’s going to have to play like it.

One man’s treasure is another man’s NFL odds treasure. At least that was the case with S Darren Sharper during the last off-season. And what an amazing journey it’s been for a man who went from an NFL odds has-been prior to the 2009 season all the way to the Pro Bowl and a key component of the Saints Super Bowl betting hopes.

Few teams in the NFL odds were interested in Sharper as an unrestricted free agent last season but the Saints, this year’s NFC rep in the Super Bowl betting odds took the chance on the aging safety and the rest is NFL odds history. Sharper led the league in INTs this season with 9, and also led the NFL odds with INTs returned for TDs (3).

It’s hard to imagine the Saints playing in the Super Bowl betting odds without him. He has been huge for this defense and arguably the best safety in the NFL this season. He will have to have a huge game in the Super Bowl betting contest if the Saints are going to win. The Saints will have to create turnovers (something they lead the NFL in with 46 TOs including the playoffs) if they want to win on Sunday.

One man’s treasure is another man’s NFL odds treasure. At least that was the case with S Darren Sharper during the last off-season. And what an amazing journey it’s been for a man who went from an NFL odds has-been prior to the 2009 season all the way to the Pro Bowl and a key component of the Saints Super Bowl betting hopes.

Few teams in the NFL odds were interested in Sharper as an unrestricted free agent last season but the Saints, this year’s NFC rep in the Super Bowl betting odds took the chance on the aging safety and the rest is NFL odds history. Sharper led the league in INTs this season with 9, and also led the NFL odds with INTs returned for TDs (3).

It’s hard to imagine the Saints playing in the Super Bowl betting odds without him. He has been huge for this defense and arguably the best safety in the NFL this season. He will have to have a huge game in the Super Bowl betting contest if the Saints are going to win. The Saints will have to create turnovers (something they lead the NFL in with 46 TOs including the playoffs) if they want to win on Sunday.

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