criminalxminds | For those Joe Mantegna (Rossi) fans out there... (Reply)

This article amused me and I thought I should share. Nothing about Criminal Minds, just Joe and the Super Bowl. =)

Joe Mantegna wins Super Bowl celebrity poll

New Orleans Saints fans aren't the only ones reveling after their team's stunning victory over Indianapolis in the Super Bowl.

Die-hard Chicago Bears fan Joe Mantegna is celebrating, too.

Mantegna, a Tony Award-winning actor who currently stars on the CBS show "Criminal Minds," won Scripps Howard's Super Sage Award for predicting that the Saints would beat the Colts, 28-17 -- just three points off the actual final score of 31-17. Mantegna's guess was the closest out of the 103 celebrities who participated in Scripps Howard's 21st annual Celebrity Super Bowl Poll.

Mantegna said he picked the underdog Saints because he was angry that Indianapolis benched its starters during a regular-season game against the New York Jets, dooming the Colts' chances for a perfect season.

"What made me buck the odds was my anger with Indianapolis for not going for an undefeated season," said Mantegna, who hosted a Super Bowl party for about 25 people at his home in the Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. "Being a Bears fan, I think back on the '85 Bears, and doing the Super Bowl Shuffle and coming out with it before the season was even over. If they had gone into a game and said, 'Well, you know what, we're going to the playoffs anyway, let's bench Walter Payton and let's bench Jim McMahon, and give them a rest,' the Bears fans would have gone crazy.

"To me the idea of an undefeated season is almost as important if not equally important as the goal of a Super Bowl. I thought the disdain the ownership of the Colts had for an undefeated season, to try to make it to the one game -- well, my feeling was if you don't care about an undefeated season, then you shouldn't care about losing a Super Bowl, either."

Mantegna's victory wasn't clinched until Indianapolis failed to score on its final drive. The Colts drove to the Saints' three-yard line but turned the ball over on downs with 50 seconds left in the game. If Indianapolis had scored a touchdown, the score would have been 31-24, and actress Michelle Rodriguez would have won the Super Sage Award with her prediction of New Orleans, 31-23.

Mantegna became the eighth winner of the Super Sage Award, which goes to the celebrity who picks the winning Super Bowl team and comes closest to the actual final score. Golfing legend Arnold Palmer won the first Super Sage Award in 2003, followed by Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, actor Dennis Farina, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., magicians Penn & Teller, the Rev. Pat Robertson and actress Patricia De Leon last year. Mantegna will receive an engraved football trophy.

Of the 103 celebrities in this year's Celebrity Poll, 62 picked the Colts, and only 41 picked the Saints. This was just the eighth time in the Celebrity Poll's 21-year history that the majority of celebrities failed to pick the winning team.

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly picked the Colts, ending his streak of six consecutive correct Super Bowl predictions. The longest current streak now belongs to rock star Joan Jett, who has picked the last five Super Bowl winners.

Actor Haley Joel Osment holds the record, picking eight consecutive winners between 2000-07. He correctly picked the Saints this year, marking the 10th time in 11 years that the former star of "The Sixth Sense" has forecast the winning team.