Monday, February 7, 2011

I Gotta Lot To Say About Super Bowl XLV!!!


It's been about half a day since Super Bowl XLV has ended. I'm over my snack hangover from last night and have stepped away enough to be able to gather all of my thoughts.

AARON RODGERS: He was worth all the hype. He had a very nice statistical game ... and he would've had a better one if not for a bevy of dropped passes (two would've went for TDs). Even the ones that were completely were just in the right spot. He absolutely threaded the needle on Greg Jennings' first TD reception. He was like a surgeon out there. Simply amazing.

BRETT FAVRE: Could this season have been any worse for Favre? Seriously. The Vikings embarrassed themselves by essentially begging Favre to play again. He looked old all year and the Vikings way underperformed. He got into a snide spat with coach Brad Childress that eventually got the coach fired (well, Randy Moss may have done that). His consecutive starts streak ended due to injury. He had that whole texting of his junk fiasco. And in what will most likely be his final game, he stood on the sideline of a frigid college stadium and watched some guy no one ever heard of lead his team.

So of course Aaron Rodgers and the Packers were going to win the Super Bowl. Of course. Rodgers has now matched Favre's ring accomplishments and even won the game's MVP award (Brett doesn't have one of those). Plus it vindicated Packers GM Ted Thompson's decision to let Favre walk and begin the Rodgers Era.

It reminds me of Brad Hamilton in Fast Times At Ridgemont High. He had everything but let his cockiness get the best of him. After that, it was all down hill (well, until he thwarted a robbery attempt at the end of the movie). Favre didn't even get that.

TROY POLAMALU: Where were you?

INJURIES: As the game went on, I really hoped the Steelers didn't make the comeback to win the game. The Green Bay team that was on that field wasn't the one they though they'd have going in. Charles Woodson, Donald Driver and that Shields kid all were knocked out of the game. The Steelers were down big before Woodson got hurt so it's no surprise what the difference was when Pittsburgh started mounting a comeback when he was knocked out of the game.

Injuries are part of football and we all know that. But it sucks when they affect the actual championship game. Like that Texas-Alabama BCS title game two years ago when Colt McCoy was knocked out of the game early on. It's just a shame. Good thing Green Bay overcame all of that and pulled out the win.

CHRISTINA AGUILERA: I was shocked at how bad she was. I believe she's one of the most talented singers we have and easily the best of the teeny-boppers of a decade ago. So it really got me that Aguilera sung the national anthem so poorly and even messing up the lyrics. Yikes.

BLACK EYED PEAS: I'm not a BEP fan at all, though I know their history and catalogue and all of that. I understand it was those kids and middle aged women that were going to love their halftime show. But it didn't sit with me. Fine, play all your hits and have all the weird futuristic costumes and sets you want. But don't grab Slash and have Fergie just ruin Sweet Child O' Mine. My wife was changing our daughter's diaper in the other room and came out with this look on her face. And it wasn't the diaper that put it there.

I'm not big on any of the halftime shows anyway (though I did watch Prince's a few years back). I did watch this one because I had to, but it wasn't worth all of that.

COMMERCIALS: Not the side-splitting ads that we have been accustomed to. There were a few winners for me and some losers. I liked both Eminem ads. I liked several of the Doritos one, especially the magic Dorito dust and when the little dog knocked down the door. Those monkeys on careerbuilder.com were a winner as usual. I liked the Darth Vader commercial. I also liked the one where we could hear the couple's thoughts. But nothing knocked me out of my seat.

DALLAS: If it wasn't for Jerry Jones and that state-of-the-art stadium, I'd say that Dallas has no shot at hosting another Super Bowl. While the city can't do anything about the weather, the ice and snow storms crippled everything in the week leading up to the game. As Atlanta has found out, it's tough to win back the NFL after an ice storm shuts down your city.

I can forgive Dallas for that (though the fact that everything was so spread out made the affect of the ice even worse), but I can't forgive them for the ticket crisis before the game. How in the heck do you promise people seats and then not have enough for them when the game starts? I know that they worked feverishly to put the extra seats in, but they had several years to get this done. While relocating some to better vantage points and paying others triple the face value of their ticket was a decent touch, it scares me to death that something like this could happen to me.

ROGER GOODELL: I like the commish and I think he's really good at his job (though I don't always agree with him). But to stand up there and talk about what a great season this was ... knowing we are looking at you as one of the reasons we may not see any football next year. Word is that this game broke last year's Saints-Colts Super Bowl as the most watched program EVER. Don't screw up this momentum by nickel and diming yourselves in a $9 billion pie.

No comments: