This post is part of our feature on Money Losers of 2008. See all 20.

I love football players. When they're not entertaining me with their athletic prowess, they can usually be found doing something reckless or saying something ridiculous. Plus, several of them have ushered me to a Super Bowl victory in the 2008 Schaeffer's fantasy football league (Andre Johnson of the Houston Texans, if you're reading this: you complete me). As such, Plaxico Burress is the best of all possible worlds -- a gifted wide receiver with absolutely no common sense.

As you've probably heard by now, the New York Giants suspended Burress without pay in early December after he accidentally shot himself in the leg with an unlicensed firearm. The Super Bowl-winning wideout arrived at a club in Manhattan with the loaded weapon concealed in his pants, but the .40-caliber Glock unexpectedly discharged outside the VIP area.

In other words, Burress's suspension was mostly a formality; it's hard to run those out routes with a bullet wound in your thigh, and he was already battling a hamstring injury. The withheld salary was hardly symbolic, though.

This post is part of our feature on Money Winners of 2008. See all 20.

Everybody likes an underdog, but especially me -- I'm a die-hard Cincinnati Bengals fan, after all. So, heading into the 2007 football season, I had quite a soft spot for New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning. His older brother, Peyton, had just led the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl victory. Meanwhile, cranky New York sports fans were calling for Eli's head due to his rather spotty performance behind center. As far as Archie's boys go, it wasn't hard to pinpoint Eli as the underdog.

But, a funny thing happened on the way to the Super Bowl. The Giants nearly upset the undefeated New England Patriots in their last regular-season game, and then the Boys in Blue went on to score unexpected playoff victories against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Green Bay Packers. Suddenly, Eli Manning was following in big brother Peyton's footsteps and preparing for a final showdown against the (still undefeated) Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.

Going into that fateful championship game, it's probably a safe bet to say that most of the football universe was rooting for the Giants. By this point in the season, the Patriots had embarrassed nearly every team in the NFL once or twice, and sports fans were thirsty for vengeance. As a result, the Eli Manning fan club swelled to proportions never before seen.

Awhile back, amid the subprime default fall-out, more-somber outlook for the U.S. economy and hence, the markets, yours truly suggested that investors increase the number of defensive stocks in their portfolios. In doing so I drew on a lesson offered by my late Uncle Nick, a lifelong New York Giants fan and season ticket holder. The wisdom:

In tough times, think established companies. Something, as my Uncle Nick would say, "As strong as the New York Giants' defensive front four." And I added that in case one hadn't noticed lately, the defensive front four of the Giants, also the favorite football team of yours truly, is still pretty good.

(My late Uncle Nick, of course, based his advise on the Giants' longstanding tradition of building a strong defense first, because, according to many revered football head coaches, Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells among them, defense wins championships.)

Last night's Super Bowl may have been the most watched telecast ever, according to preliminary data compiled by Nielsen Media Research.

Ratings for the contest between the New York Giants and New England Patriots were up 9% from last year. Figures for the number of viewers weren't immediately available from Nielsen. The most watched program of all time was the 1983 finale of "M-A-S-H." Until now, the most-watched Super Bowl was in 1996 when the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Shares of News Corp (NYSE: NWS), whose Fox Network broadcast last night's game, are down 18% over the past year as Wall Street worried that Rupert Murdoch's media empire would be hurt by a slowdown in advertising spending and the Hollywod writers' strike.