Patriots practice-squad cornerback Tim Mixon is on the red carpet yesterday with East Providence native and former Miss USA-Rhode Island Claudia Jordan, of the Entertainment Tonight network. She pretended to be the players’ escort while they were questioned by ET’s Kevin Frazier.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Claudia Jordan is looking pretty as a picture, in part because her dress absolutely, positively, had to be painted on.

The former Miss USA-Rhode Island and East Providence High track star is now a “Deal or No Deal” girl, and the “deal” on this wild and wacky Tuesday morning during Media Day at Super Bowl XLII is that Patriots players who are not stars get to walk the red carpet with Claudia.

If ever there was a day to be a backup player, this is it.

While the likes of Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Tedy Bruschi, Junior Seau and Rodney Harrison are stuck on a podium, pinned behind microphones by engulfing hordes of inquisitive media, answering the same questions over and over again, Patriots practice-squad players like Jason Rader and Tim Mixon are getting star treatment, strolling and “vogue-ing” with the lovely Claudia for a segment of the television show Entertainment Tonight, scheduled to air last night.

“Give me the ‘GQ’ look,” Claudia coos to Mixon. “Look over your shoulder, back at the camera.

“Now for a couple of shots to create some rumors,” she says, flashing a dazzling smile and throwing her arms around Mixon, while kicking a leg up behind her.

This prompts two other Pats practice-squad players to burst into song.

“If you are what you say you are — a superstar,” croon C.J. Jones and “Bam” Childress, singing one of their favorites by Lupe Fiasco.

Fiasco — that’s one way to describe what’s going on.

You’ve heard of Midnight Madness. This is Morning Madness — a zany bit of Cactus Craziness here in the desert.

Compared to this, walking down Bourbon Street in the midst of Mardi Gras is a quiet stroll.

It’s an event that makes New Year’s Eve in Times Square seems like a night at the library.

It’s a media circus so big it wouldn’t fit under the biggest of tops, and so had to be staged under an open roof at the University of Phoenix Stadium.

Hurry, hurry, hurry!

See the would-be bride in the thigh-high white gown, lace-topped hose that stop just above the knee, and fire engine-red shoes propose to Tom Brady!

Come one, come all, to talk to Charlie, the puppet monkey from Mexico, or Paco, the hand puppet who conducts interviews for Telemundo, the Spanish-language cable network.

“Paco doesn’t have a last name,” says his “representative,” Enrique Bertran, who does all of the talking for the mustachioed little man on his hand. “He’s like Prince, or Madonna — just one name.”

There is no Fat Lady at this carnival. Instead, there is Ines Sainz, who bulges in all the right places, wearing a low-cut halter top and low-slung jeans. The popular star of TV Azteca, in Mexico, has designer sunglasses perched atop her head, a heavy gold chain around her neck, dipping deeply into her dÉcolletage, and dangling earrings the size of Super Bowl rings.

She holds a microphone in one hand and, briefly, a soccer ball in the other.

“I understand soccer,” she says. “American football, not so much.”

What’s harder to understand is why an NFL security man quickly confiscated her soccer ball.

Then again, that made as much sense as just about anything else going on along the sidelines of the field where, on Sunday, the serious business of Super Bowl XLII will be conducted.

Joel Bengoa, who works for Telemundo, is dressed as an astrologist, with a huge gold turban and a black cape, adorned with golden crescent moons.

He says he “sees in the planets” that the Patriots will win, by five points.

Then, in an aside, he wonders just what in the world he’s doing.

“This isn’t really working out for me,” he says. “I’m supposed to be interviewing people, but everybody is interviewing me.”

Smiling, he adds: “This is a circus. The serious reporters are asking the players serious questions. The rest of us are having fun.”

Fun — silliness, even — is the order of the day.

It’s even harder to take Media Day seriously than it is to keep Brady from completing a pass when he needs to on third down.

“I love the red carpet,” said Rader, his cheek red after receiving a peck from Jordan, who said she ran the 200 and 400, and also competed in the long jump, at East Providence High School before she moved to Los Angeles and started appearing on television.

“Tom Brady lives the red-carpet life all the time,” Rader said. “It’s nice to step into his shoes for three minutes.”

The craziness continues for an hour, with players laughingly interviewing each other, and, like the television cameramen swirling around them, filming the action for themselves with hand-held digital camcorders.

“I’m doing this for the memories, man,” defensive back Antwain Spann says while peering through a viewfinder.

It’s a day that anyone who was there never forgets. And it’s a good idea to have pictures to prove just how crazy it was.

jdonalds@projo.com