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Morning After: Flacco Gets Car, Legacy

NEW ORLEANS --- If ever a guy didn't match the car, it was Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco standing next to the new red Corvette Stingray he was awarded Monday for being the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XLVII.

Flacco seemed as tall as the car was long. His eyes seemed to widen in something approaching discomfort when the guy representing Chevrolet told him the Corvette would go 0-to-60 in four seconds. It was pointed out that for a man with an infant son, who just found out he has another child on the way, a two-seater might not be ideal. Flacco said he pretty much has been driving cars loaned from dealerships in recent years; the only car he has ever actually owned is an old white Volvo that got passed down from other family members.

Frankly, Flacco is a bit of a white Volvo kind of guy.

"I don't know if I'll ever be comfortable with it," said the QB from tiny Audubon, N.J., when asked about the adulation that attends stardom. "I like to go about my business."

After throwing 11 touchdowns passes in the postseason this year with no interceptions, his business is going to change. There is David Letterman to quip with Monday night, the parade in Baltimore Tuesday, and then the obligatory Disney World trip, before he even gets around to dealing with that megamillion contract the Ravens have promised.

Your Eagletarian was able to ask Flacco about his Saturday afternoon jaunt around the French Quarter, which included a picture-taking session with fans at the Cafe Du Monde.

"I wanted to try to go about my Saturday as I always would, especially if I was home," said Flacco, who reckoned the cab ride from the Ravens' hotel took half an hour to go the mile or so to Cafe Du Monde. After their walk, he said he and his wife, Dana, took a bike-cab back, which presumably was quicker. "The preparation was kind of all over at that point. Just wanted to relax the mind before the game."

After his commanding, three-touchdown performance, Flacco said he couldn't wait to get to bed in the wee hours of Monday morning, following a party that included the chance to meet Beyonce and Jay Z, but when he finally hit the pillow, he couldn't fall asleep, ended up getting about an hour and a half in before heading to the Super Bowl media center for one last go-round, with head coach John Harbaugh and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

Goodell, by the way, lavishly praised the host city and opined that the 34-minute blackout Sunday night should have no effect on New Orleans' bid to get back into the regular Super Bowl rotation. "There were no safety issues at any time," Goodell said. There also were no crop failures or alien abductions, but a 34-minute gap in the middle of a game generally is considered less than ideal. Goodell said officials would undertake a "root cause analysis" of what caused the power abnormality that triggered a partial shutdown of the system in the third quarter.

Goodell called the blackout an "unfortunate incident," almost in the same breath in which he announced that for the third year in a row, the SB was the most-watched TV show in history.

Other highlights:

*Ravens coach John Harbaugh, when handed the Lombardi Trophy as he walked onstange Monday: "We haven't seen this since last night. We thought we'd lost it."

*Harbaugh was asked if he thought there would ever be a day when he and his brother Jim, the 49ers' coach, would watch a replay of Super Bowl XLVII together. "I don't think we'll ever watch that game together. Absolutely not," he said.

*Flacco said he doesn't know what Audubon's plans to celebrate his feat might entail.