Seahawks

INDIANAPOLIS — It is the most mocked of Super Bowl traditions. Media day, when hundreds of reporters — and others with credentials — gather several days before the game to pepper the players with exceedingly serious or exceptionally silly questions. It is sports' pregame theater of the absurd, replete with questioners in costume.

But in the first 45 years of the Super Bowl, it was a closed affair: media, players and coaches only. Until this year, when it dawned on NFL leaders that the football fan's appetite for the Super Bowl spectacle is boundless. For the game this year in Indianapolis, the NFL offered 7,300 media day tickets online for $25. They quickly sold out and then became popular on the secondary market.

Before the media day Tuesday at Lucas Oil Stadium, scalpers outside the building did a quick business in marked-up tickets that went for about $45.

The fans who entered were given an earpiece at the door that permitted them to listen to some of the interviews being conducted on the field. They sat in assigned lower-grandstand seats for three hours and merrily watched, cheered and laughed during the league's first public Super Bowl media day.

"We can't hear all of the questions, so we have to guess," said Lee Clifford, who brought his sons, 10-year-old Ben and 8-year-old Nick. "I guess lots of people can get a pass to a media event."

With players and coaches penned into cubicles, mainstream reporters were joined Tuesday by a guy in a superhero costume, another in an old-time football uniform, kids with microphones and some women who wore dresses that left little to the imagination. They asked the Patriots and Giants anything that crossed their minds.

And we do mean anything.

"This is crazy, man. It's crazy," said Patriots safety Patrick Chung. "I've never seen anything like this ever."

Actually, none of the players had.

Even people who carry their own disco ball, as the camera crew from Telemundo did.

Media day has never been the stuff of Woodward and Bernstein.

But it's gone from off-the-wall to downright goofy in recent years, the tipping point coming four years ago when a reporter from Mexico's TV Azteca showed up in a wedding dress from a slasher movie in hopes of winning Tom Brady's heart.

Imagine asking Vince Lombardi if he could name three Kardashians. New England's Rob Gronkowski actually did pretty well — he got Kim and Khloe right away, but needed a few more seconds to come up with Kourtney.

Someone asked Giants defensive end Justin Tuck about his hair, the stubble on his cheeks, his shaving habits and the like. "I don't think hair is going to have as much of an impact Sunday as you all would like it to," he said.

Gronkowski improving

The boot is off and Rob Gronkowski's ankle is feeling much better.

New England's All-Pro tight end shed his walking boot in time for media day, and sounded optimistic he'd be lining up against the Giants.

"I'm improving every day," Gronkowski said. "The only reason it's getting so blown up is because it's the Super Bowl. It's just like any other injury during any other week."

Gronkowski, who suffered a high left ankle sprain in the AFC title game Jan. 22, said he could be anywhere from in perfect health to "2 percent" for the game, adding that it's still six days away.

Peyton talks comeback

Peyton Manning isn't ready to discuss retirement yet.

The four-time league MVP told a group of reporters in Indianapolis that he doesn't plan to stop playing and that his recovery from a third neck surgery continues to be on schedule.

"My plan hasn't changed," Manning said at a hotel. "I'm on track with what the doctors have told me to do, and I'm doing that. I'm rehabbing hard."

When asked about reports he might soon retire, he responded: "I have no plans on doing that."

Manning's shadow has been looming over the NFL title game for days, and it doesn't show signs of going away anytime soon though he wishes he wasn't such a distraction.

"It's not the way it should be," he said earlier in a taped interview with ESPN. "I really don't think it will be as the week goes on."

The quarterback of the hometown Colts has not played in more than a year because of a damaged nerve that caused weakness in his throwing arm.

There has been rampant speculation about his recovery, the potential risks of a return, whether the Colts will pay Manning a $28 million roster bonus in early March to prevent him from becoming a free agent or whether the soon-to-be 36-year-old might quit playing.

NOTE

• Three Patriots are dealing with illnesses as left tackle Matt Light and right tackle Sebastian Vollmer skipped the media day. Linebacker Jerod Mayo attended but said he has a cold.