CAN IT BE?

If you've watched the NFL at all this season, you've seen the ad. If you're anything like me, it took you about 10 times seeing it (from the beginning of the season until about mid-season) to realize what was going on. It's the Motorola Razr ad, in which Eric Mangini is the guy flinging his phone around in anger, and since it's such a sleek phone, it embeds itself into whatever it was thrown at - a car, a ceiling fan, a boat. (Like the wall in the picture at the top left, but that's not from the same commercial.)

Part of what I want to comment on is the fact that this commercial portrays Mangini as the coach of a team that didn't play well, presumabely more than once, since these phone have been thrown so many different places. The commercial has been airing since the beginning of the season, with the Jets coming off a playoff appearance - no one involved with this commercial, I'm sure, saw the 4-win season coming. So it was a little prescient, and I'm sure if Mangini had any inkling that his team would be this bad this year, he wouldn't have done this commercial.

But that's not my main comment. After seeing the commercial for about the 100th time in the past couple of weeks, and thinking for about the 97th time, "Why would they use Eric Mangini in this commercial?", I heard the tagline for Motorola. It's a voiceover, and the voice they use sounds an awful lot like......Bill Belichick. Now, I don't know if it's him or not...I'll leave that to more inquisitive minds, like naturalbl0g. Part of it is likely - NFL coaches have a deal with Motorola, they wear their headsets and all, and if Eric Mangini is in a commercial, why not Belichick? But part of it is also unlikely - I don't think Belichick would do endorsements. But if it is him - interesting that his voice-over is the tag on a commercial starring Eric Mangini, no? Especially this year, with the spy-gate follow-up to "The Hug" of last year.

This isn't a major deal - it's just something I've been meaning to write about for a couple of weeks. And I thought now was a good time.

PLAYOFFS: I'll comment on the playoffs Sunday night as my last act before resuming a normal school schedule. Thanks to everyone who is participating in the playoff picks.