We were hoping that the winning team's hometown paper would provide today's BFD, but sadly, that wasn't the case. The Indianapolis Star had "super" written all over it, but the page was anything but. However, it does provide an excellent case study of opportunities missed:

The Star's single-copy presentation wasn't particularly effective because the lead image hit the fold at an awkward point, and the refer to the 40-page victory section appeared below the fold. The refer would have worked better above the nameplate, replacing the line that said "Super Bowl Champions." This line overstated the obvious and parroted the main headline to boot. The lead photo may have shown the right people, but their expression didn't say "super," much less "Super Bowl Champion." The column and refers beneath the photo seemed a bit jumbled and lacked the order of the rest of the page. Surely this portion of the page could have been designed with more care, well before the end of the game.

There were two non-Super Bowl standouts today: The Orlando Sentinel deftly balanced the game's results with ongoing coverage of the recent storm's aftermath. And The Detroit News' "Project X" also balanced an important local story with the game.

But back to the Super Bowl. There were a slew of engaging headlines:

Rocky Mountain News: "Super Manning"
Chicago Tribune: "Tropical depression" and "Reign out"
The Virginian-Pilot: "Colt comfort"
Link: "Indy over windy"
Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Hard to bear"
Chronicle-Tribune: "Blue reign"

There were two unusual layout treatments, both of which stretched the limits of conventional page width, from the RepublicanAmerican and The Times.

Today's BFD goes to RedEye, taking a cue from T.S. Eliot: "This the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper."

Our description of the Chicago Tribune's coverage of Saddam Hussein's execution applies to this to this page: "The large image contrasted with the understated, diminutive, one-word headline. Sometimes a whisper is the best way to get someone's attention. It may seem like a minor detail, but the Trib took this headline one step further by ending the headline with a period. This tiny punctuation mark was more than the end of the headline - it served as a metaphor for the end of Hussein's life and his reign in Iraq."

It said finality without saying it.


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