Super Bowl XL ended just the way it should have ended. The yellow towels that blanketed Ford Field would suggest that any other ending would have been like George Bailey drowning in "It's A Wonderful Life." Clichés abound… "a win for the chin… one for the thumb." The last time Detroit saw this many towels at a football game the Lions fans were crying into them.

Going to Detroit for most of us would not be an upgrade, but if you live in Pittsburgh… well, it might have the makings of a great vacation. For Seattle to win this game would have been like the ole man Potter taking over the Bailey Building and Loan.

Even Coach Mike Holmgren's own wife mailed it in. She didn't bother to show up for this one as she was off in the Congo on a medical aid mission with her doctor daughter. There's something about people from Seattle that make you wonder if this whole Super Bowl thing was like another rainy day in the shadow of the needle. Yawn.

Let's face it, folks from Seattle are … well, just too nice. They didn't even know how to pick a good fight. Offensive end Jeramy Stevens, who innocently suggested that Jerome Bettis would not leave Detroit with a Lombardi Trophy, caught the raft of Steeler's linebacker Joey Porter, who called him soft and did everything but beat up his mommy. Makes you wonder if they had too many Starbucks. Stevens responded by dropping critical passes that could have helped the Seahawks win the game. Porter must have gotten between his ears.

Not only were Seahawk fans outnumbered 9-1, even the refs seemed to be on the side of the yellow towels, throwing a few of their own to help the "chin" (Steeler Coach Bill Cower) claim his first Super Bowl ring in two trips to the big game. Had the Steelers lost, I suspect we would have had another Detroit riot, so at least the refs did their part in keeping the peace.

Seattle was not permitted to win because Bill Cower grew up in Pittsburgh and was a Steeler fan since he was in diapers. Seattle was not permitted to win because Jerome Bettis was from Detroit and was going home to retire. Too many great story lines would have been really screwed up with a Seahawk victory.

Appropriately, Jerome Bettis, better known as "the bus" announced his retirement, effectively saying the "the bus stops here."

Actually, it won't be the final stop for "the bus." My guess is he will end up on a Hall of Fame ballot like Harry Carson and John Madden, two of the most recent recipients of the prestigious honor.

I first met Harry Carson through the late Craig S. Kelly, a Columbia attorney and sports agent who was also my lawyer. Craig represented Carson all those years when he prowled the sidelines as a linebacker for the New York Giants. Kelly, who represented hundreds of athletes and coaches over the years, once told me his greatest disappointment was not seeing Harry get into the Hall of Fame.

Carson himself was frustrated by being spurned by the Hall for so many years and it was not until the recent death of Giant's owner Wellington Mara that he finally warmed up to the idea that he might finally be voted in. "I was never disenchanted with the Hall of Fame," said the former South Carolina State standout. "I was disenchanted with the process." After 13 years of waiting, Carson was voted in this year along with John Madden and four others.

Madden was speaking to the same audience I was addressing in Hawaii when I first met him. He's the same guy off air as he is on the air. Former Lexington High School standout, Gene Hendrix, who once coached with Madden at a California high school, called Madden one of the smartest coaches he had ever met.

All in all, it was a pretty good week in Detroit, if you discount the fact that it was in Detroit. There were no wardrobe malfunctions this year. The best line of the week came from Stevie Wonder when asked about wardrobe malfunctions. "I haven't seen any," he responded.