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Bomb-sniffing dogs at train stations. Metal-detectors in every doorway. Police sharpshooters perched on rooftops. High-tech sensors and cameras capturing every move. Paris? Nope. Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara.

The 2-6 San Francisco 49ers are benching quarterback Colin Kaepernick and starting Blaine Gabbert this weekend against the Falcons, ESPN's Adam Schefter reported Monday. Niners head coach Jim Tomsula said earlier on Monday that he was "evaluating everything." Later in the day, Schefter reported that San Francisco had traded veteran tight end Vernon Davis to the Denver Broncos for a 2016 7th-round draft pick and 6th round picks in 2016 and 2017. Kaepernick, who led the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2012 and the NFC Championship Game in 2013, is having the worst season of his career. He's thrown...

Why was it OK to have Super Bowl I, V, X, but not L?

San Francisco is known for its Golden Gate Bridge, world class cuisine, panoply of cultures, striking skyline, frigid fog, and homeless. More specifically, aggressive panhandling and homeless defecating and urinating in public. And sometimes doing even worse things. With the holiday shopping season coming, and Super Bowl 50 right behind, the city by the bay will be in the national spotlight once again, and so will images. While Mayor Ed Lee announced this week that "the homeless must leave the street" for Super Bowl 50, it's more what they leave behind on the street that is a concern for the...

There can no longer be any doubt — “Deflategate” is not about football. It is about a national affliction — one of the seven deadly sins: Envy. “Envy: the feeling of wanting to have what someone else has.” Exactly. And it’s made unhinged haters out of a lot of you outside New England. Tom Brady took a helicopter to Salem State University. “Arrogant!” detractors from across the country shouted. Collectively, Americans have not been so fixated on a helicopter image since the fall of Saigon.

Unlike the 2014 Little League World Series champs, who lost their trophy because they fielded ineligible players, the New England Patriots are not going to lose their Super Bowl rings over Deflategate. But it will be instructive to see the public reaction over the National Football League’s announced four-game suspension on Monday of Patriot quarterback Tom Brady over the deflating of footballs at the AFC championship game. Amid growing evidence, he couldn’t plausibly scramble his way out of his previous contention that he knew nothing about the incident in the Patriots’ 45-7 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC...

An N.F.L. investigation has found that “it is more probable than not” that New England Patriots personnel intentionally deflated footballs to gain an advantage in the A.F.C. championship game last season, and that Tom Brady, the Super Bowl most valuable player, was probably aware of it. No penalties have been announced. The long-awaited report into so-called deflategate, released on Wednesday, concluded that it was probable that Patriots personnel were “involved in a deliberate effort to circumvent the rules.” The report said that Jim McNally, a locker room attendant, and John Jastremski, an equipment assistant, released air from the footballs. It...

BOSTON (CBS) — The Patriots will be honored by President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, but the MVP won’t be in attendance. According to ESPN’s Mike Reiss and the Boston Herald’s Jeff Howe, Tom Brady will not be present at the White House due to a family obligation. Brady has attended three previous trips to the White House, in 2002, 2004 and 2005. The quarterback earned Super Bowl MVP honors for the third time in his career when he threw four touchdowns in a 28-24 win over the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. There’s no reason to...

As I continue to read on twitter that former dude from MSNBC that couldn't beat O'Reilly at 8, some NBA star I never heard of and that CBS anaylist that I used to like until yesterday talk about how the NFL and NCAA should move from Indianapolis, I realize maybe it is time to move the Super Bowl out of San Francisco and the whole California state. There is no reason why millions of freedom loving Christians, conservatives, republicans or libertarians should have to watch this horrible city host one of the biggest events of the year. The city that...

It started with a bet between movie stars — and ended with both guys putting on their superhero costumes and visiting children’s hospitals. “Guardians of the Galaxy” star Chris Pratt and “Captain America” star Chris Evans set up a friendly wager on Twitter ahead of the 2015 Super Bowl: If Evans’ favorite team, the New England Patriots, won, Pratt would visit the Christopher’s Haven cancer charity in Boston dressed as Star-Lord, and if Pratt’s Seattle Seahawks won, Evans would visit Seattle Children’s Hospital dressed as Captain America.

Weeks after the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl victory the DeflateGate scandal continues to rumble on in the background. According to ESPN’s Outside the Lines, a Patriots locker room attendant attempted to introduce an unapproved special teams ball into the AFC Championship game. The attendant, identified by ESPN as Jim McNally, is said to have been in charge of the officials’ locker room at Gilette Stadium since 2008. He is alleged to have handed a ball, which wasn’t officially approved for kick-offs, field goals and punts to an official during the first-half of the Patriots’ 45-7 victory over the Colts.

Compare and Contrast: The Super Bowl and the Mass, Football and Faith By: Msgr. Charles Pope I write to you in the midst of a semi-“religious” event: the Super Bowl. People have donned their sacred attire and are shouting praises. I enjoy football, but see it a lot less than most since I’m a priest and tend to be busy on Sundays! Yet I remain quite fascinated at how passionate and dedicated many Americans are to their team and to the game.Would that more Catholics had the same dedication to the Mass and the Church that true football fans have...

Worst call ever? Check out the best of the worst insults. CNN's Jeanne Moos intercepts putdowns of Seattle's play-calling.

Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll isn't sleeping well these days. Carroll and his offensive coaching staff made the infamous decision to pass the ball from New England's 1-yard line in the final seconds of Super Bowl XLIX, resulting in Russell Wilson throwing a game-ending interception.

BOSTON (CBS) — Tom Brady won his fourth Lombardi Trophy and third Super Bowl MVP award Sunday night. But he wouldn’t have accomplished that without a clutch interception by undrafted rookie Malcolm Butler, who picked off Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson at the New England one-yard line with just seconds remaining in Super Bow XLIX to seal the victory for the Patriots. “I think there are a lot of people who are very deserving of this award,” Brady said Monday morning in Arizona as he collected his latest MVP trophy. As MVP, Brady also received a shiny new Chevy truck. While...

The Nation’s Dave Zirin (the same journalist who brought us the genius idea that not cheering for the Seattle Seahawks is racist) wrote a post-Super Bowl column attributing the Seattle Seahawks’ horrible decision to throw a pass on the one-yard line in the final seconds of the game was due to “the politics of race” and an anti-Marshawn Lynch conspiracy. (VIDEO: Patriots And Seahawks Fans React To Malcolm Butler’s Interception) The theory, as relayed by Zirin, is that Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll called a pass because he wanted the young, clean-cut quarterback Russell Wilson to be seen as the...

Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin is staying tight-lipped about his end zone celebration following a touchdown catch in Super Bowl XLIX on Sunday. After the former Stanford University wideout caught a touchdown pass in the third quarter against the New England Patriots, he stood over the ball on the ground and made a motion that resembled pulling down his pants, before squatting over the ball.

After a year full of discord and #outrage, Super Bowl advertisers went waaay somber. It’s as if they hoped to gently heal us, to spur reflection, to encourage us all to just, like, coexist with each other and consider each other’s struggles. Over the course of the night, there appeared dead children. Absent fathers. People forced to work during the Super Bowl instead of watching the game. There was Jeff Bridges helping us to conquer our nighttime anxieties. Frankly, the whole thing was sort of a bummer. I’m all in favor of marketers evolving beyond the farting animals and contused...

RUSH: So we had the Super Bowl last night. Folks, I don't quite know how to express this. I still feel cheated. I don't think that ended up being a pro-football game. I mean, it was, but that last call -- I've looked at it every number of ways. I've listened to every excuse offered. You know, it would be wonderful if Obama would actually stand up and take responsibility for his mistakes like Pete Carroll has. If Obama had made that call last night and it blew up, Obama would say (imitating Obama), "I knew nothing about it. I...

Everyone knew it was coming. Second-and-1 on the 1-yard line. Marshawn Lynch was waiting in the backfield, poised to do what he was put on this Earth to do: Get a touchdown — this touchdown. The football gods had telegraphed how they wanted the game to end, directing a floating ball straight into Jermaine Kearse’s hands. Beast Mode was going to drag the New England team kicking and screaming into the end zone if he had to. But the play call came in, Russell Wilson attempted a doomed pass that Malcolm Butler intercepted, and it was Seattle that punched and...