By Karl Shmavonian, Forbes Staff In honor of the upcoming Super Bowl XLVII (the 49ers against the Ravens, in case you hadn’t heard), to be played in New Orleans, the theme of Thoughts On the Business of Life this time is football. One of the highlights of this season has been the emergence of numerous young quarterbacks, such as the 49ers’ Colin Kaepernick and the wounded Robert Griffin III of the Redskins, to complement veteran stars like Joe Flacco,  Tom Brady, the Manning brothers and Aaron Rodgers. It seems like there have never been so many great quarterbacks in the league at the same time. Hall of Famer Steve Young agrees: We’re in a little bit of a boom right now. If those guys continue to develop, we’ll have a period of time here, kind of a Camelot of quarterbacking.” Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports has this: I can’t remember–even though this is a quarterback-driven league–as many remarkable and compelling stories on the quarterback side as you’re seeing this year.” One guy that these quarterbacks won’t be sorry to see leaving the field is Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who will play his final game at the Super Bowl. The man is one of the greats of  linebacking. Here’s how he described telling his teammates recently that he was hanging up his cleats: I told my team that this would be my last ride. And I told them I was just at so much peace in where I am with my decision because of everything that I’ve done in this league. I’ve done it, I’ve done it, man.” On a gloomier note, the issue of concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) continues to loom over the sport. CTE was front and center with the recent announcement that analysis of former player Junior Seau‘s brain (he committed suicide) revealed damage consistent with CTE. Mark Walczak, a former NFL player and teammate of Seau’s, describes what players and the league are going through: I’m not surprised that Junior Seau and others have this evidence of brain damage. Junior just didn’t report head injuries. If you did report stuff like that, next thing you know you’re on waivers. I think they’ve basically just scratched the surface of a gigantic iceberg. They turned a blind eye to this for so long, and now it’s an avalanche.” An annual ritual in the NFL is the firing and hiring of coaches. Among this year’s batch of castoffs was Andy Reid of the Eagles. He was replaced by Chip Kelly, who was coaching at U. of Oregon and has no NFL experience. Nick Saban, coach of NCAA champion Alabama, knows the hazards of coaching in the NFL (quoted in a FORBES 2008 article written by Monte Burke): In the NFL you get one first-round draft pick if you’re lucky. You couldn’t really outwork anybody else. In college I could recruit ten players with first-round talent every year.” In recent years, advertising for the Super Bowl has become as much a spectator sport as has the game itself. Advertising executive Ned Crowley comments on the attention his industry gets during the Super Bowl: Hyping up the Super Bowl ads has gotten even more ridiculous than hyping up the game. Or maybe we should just start running a four-hour block of commercials with little snippets of football in between.” And now, my prediction for the big game: Baltimore[/entity] by five points.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest