(oh yeah, they’d be a huge improvement)

We’re just a few days shy of the one year anniversary of Sportsline’s Gregg Doyel using his SB XLI press pass for the all important purpose of Googling personal details about Deadspin commentators who’d been trashing him. In what can only be considered a small sign of progress, Doyel has moved on from such (ahem) petty concerns…to trashing 8 thousand year old Tom Petty.

Tom Petty? Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake do their naughty thing, so we get stuck with Paul McCartney and now Tom Petty?

Petty’s halftime set was a trip through the past. Why? Because all he has is a past. He has no present, and his future is especially bleak. The NFL ought to do better than a couple of aging rockers with no current relevance.

Get us Ludacris or 50 Cent or even Nickelback. I’ll listen to “Rock Star” played over and over for 12 minutes instead of Tom Petty’s greatest hits. Who’s up next year? Peter, Paul and Mary?

Dave Stewart associations aside, I’ve got no gripe with the Philandering Floridian. And while I’ll let Doyel’s recommendation of Nickelback speak for itself, Petty deserves considerable praise for his use of a Flying V shaped-stage. Clearly, Jared Lorenzen isn’t the only huge Jay Reatard fan in Glendale today.