Super Bowl Musings

For the first time in a while, I really enjoyed the Super Bowl, rather than watching it as an excuse to see some overhyped and only occasionally memorable commercials.

Well done, Saints! Perfect end to a storybook season.

Seeing the look on Peyton Manning's face after that backbreaking interception return for a touchdown? Priceless!

On the other hand, it says something about just how scary-good Peyton Manning can be that with 1:20 left in the fourth quarter, everyone was still terrified that he'd manage to score two touchdowns.

Someone will have to explain why the Saints tried three running plays from the three yard line at the end of the first half, all to the same side and all with the same result. Not one pass play? Really? Oh well, they won so it's forgotten but if they'd lost the game, that sequence would loom very very large.

So what was the big deal about the Tim Tebow ad? While I may not agree with their position, I do think the anti-abortion groups played the the pro-choice movement for a bunch of suckers in the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. You saw a huge amount of publicity, a huge amount of hype, and a huge amount of attention drawn to the ad (free advertising, anyone?) and the anti-abortion Tebow family story. The message was flogged over and over, mostly by the pro-choice crowd (free advertising, anyone?) and then the ad rolled and what? Nothing. It was the most innocuous ad of the evening. If you hadn't had two weeks of anguish about the ad's "anti-abortion" message, no one would have known what the hell the ad was about. Sure, someone who goes to the website posted at the end of the ad will get the whole anti-abortion pitch but seriously, does anyone remember that URL four hours after the ad played?

Speaking of commercials, not a lot of winners in this year's crop. Among those that at least got a chuckle out of me were:

• Bridgestone's bacherlor party/orca
• Brett Farve, MVP at 50
  
• The Denny's Grand Slam screaming chickens (ok, it was stupid but the chicken screaming silently in space was damn funny)
• Audi's Green Police
• and of course, in one of the several "be afraid of your women/be a real man" commercial, the moment in which Jim Nance says in a complete deadpan, "As you can see, his girlfriend has removed his spine, rendering him incapable of watching the game."
  

With the Colt's loss, can we please drop all the talk that they're the Team of the Decade? I'll admit that Manning might have the edge on Brady but the Patriots win in a landslide on the team side of things.

Just a fantastic defensive stop by the Saints at the end of the fourth quarter. I thought a Colts TD was virtually a gimme after that stupid unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

You had to wonder if the trophy would ever make it to the presentation as all the Saints players did their best to touch and/or kiss it.

After several weeks of football games highlighted by absolutely awful tackling on the part of the defenses, it was a rarity for a Colt player to get away from the first or second Saints defender to lay a hand on him (the three-yard TD run in the third quarter being the exception).

Very classy by the Colts to not bother with the pointless touchdowns to drag out the end of the game in the desperate hope of a fumble on the kneel-downs. They were done, they knew it, and they didn't drag it out.

And finally, did our tax dollars actually get spent on that horrible U.S. Census ad?