8,497th Commentary on The Super Bowl

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

It’s hard right now to walk through the casino and not hear groups of people trying to determine what drugs the Seattle Seahawks’ coaching staff must have been on when they made possibly the worst single play call in the history of not just the Super Bowl, but maybe in the entire history of pro football. Or that on the play after, it turned into a hockey match, surprising that only one player was ejected.

The game was so intense up to that point, I had almost completely forgotten that we had to hear Idina Menzel emote the national anthem to the nth degree, or that Katy Perry’s halftime show was outrageous enough to almost make me like her. I’m sure she had help from auto tune, since I’ve heard her sing live on TV before, and she was never this close to being on key.

This was the first time in 12 years I had watched the game in the US, where all the super hyped once-in-a-lifetime commercials are nearly as anticipated as the game itself. When the BBC airs it in the UK, they can only show the game, not the commercials. Certainly I had favorite ads this time around, like the Snickers/Brady Bunch Meets Steve Buscemi ad, the Bud Light/life-size Pac-Man spot, and the Fiat ad where the older man drops his Viagra pill, and after an impossible series of ricochets, it winds up in the Fiat’s tank.

I guess the best thing about the recent Super Bowls too, is how few blowouts there have been, and how frequently the games have hung in the balance until the final seconds. Not like so many 80’s and 90’s Super Bowls, where the announcers can’t do much more than trot out a bunch of statistics of what records have been broken. I remember going to San Francisco’s Punch Line comedy club to watch the 1990 match between the 49’ers and Denver Broncos, but with San Francisco leading 48-3 at halftime (I think that was it, I remember the final score was 55-10), few of us were paying any attention to the game by then.

This was one of those rare Super Bowls where I really didn’t like either team involved, though I guess because of Seattle being in the same division as San Francisco, and the arrogance of Richard Sherman when his team beat the 49’ers to advance to the Super Bowl last year, I begrudgingly was rooting for New England, even though this was the Patriots’ 6th trip to the big game in this century, way more than anyone else. I’m not sure I’d even be excited if it was the 49’ers showing that kind of consistency.

So close the book on football of the US variety, and while waiting the 60 or so days before the baseball season officially starts again, I can at least be moderately excited about the Golden State Warriors basketball team having won 37 of their first 45, or that across the pond, it appears my “other” favorite football club, West Ham, aren’t in any danger of relegation. Can’t forget also that I’m in Las Vegas, and start my week-long run of two shows a night in a mere 22 hours.

February 2nd, 2015



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