The loaded ground chicken nachos (featuring home-made flour tortilla) I made for the Super Bowl party last night were well-received … until others brought their own chip-based dishes and over-saturated the market. Tough break for me, but at least the food was good.
The best moment of Sunday’s Super Bowl – bar none – was this commercial:
https://twitter.com/BN_Bears/status/1092229972817784832
Don’t judge me, but I totally made couch noises every time the screen showed one of my favorite players and the recreation of some of my favorite moments in that setting. What an amazing idea and execution to get our juices flowing as we approach the NFL’s 100th season. More of that, please!
As for the game it self, *yawn.* Tom Brady and the New England Patriots won their second Super Bowl in three seasons with a 13-3 win against the Los Angeles Rams. So much for all those points we were promised. Perhaps a Saints-Patriots, Rams-Chiefs, or Saints-Chiefs Super Bowl would have been more appealing to the eyes, but I don’t think anyone could promise we would have been given a better game. Though to be fair, it wouldn’t take much to do that.
I imagine the pettiness levels in New Orleans are off the charts today:
Across the nation, boredom reigned:
There were fans of the action we saw last night, but I found myself not wanting to confuse good defense with sloppy play. I guess, the safe thing to say here is that there was plenty of both on display. Both defenses created turnovers and New England came up with four of the game’s five sacks, but there was so much sloppiness to give too much credit to the defense. Jared Goff’s reads weren’t where they had been. He took bad sacks that put his team on the losing end of the field position battle (until punter Johnny Hekker flipped the field) and made a handful of ill-advised throws. Goff was to be the model for which Mitch Trubisky was to follow, but I don’t want the Bears’ QB1 to go down that path – not after last night.
Speaking of Trubisky, I know I wasn’t the only one who thought of how he and the Bears offense put up 31 points on the Patriots in what was a much more compelling game. Maybe those of us watching in Chicago should have re-watched that instead. Then again, Trubisky and the Bears scored just 15 against the Rams in Week 14. But I suppose that was Trubisky’s second season in a nutshell. Where there were definite strides in development, there were also plenty of place where growth is needed. Development isn’t linear, but at least we have an idea of what we shouldn’t want as fans.
It was only fitting that we saw some high-profile missed kicks on Sunday. Stephen Gostkowski’s first-quarter miss was his only blemish on the day, but the 2-for-3 performance dropped his postseason success rate from 90.2% to 88.6%. And despite his miss, I wouldn’t mind that free-agent-to-be attempting big kicks at Soldier Field next year. Though, I can’t imagine Bill Belichick and the Patriots wanting someone other than Gostkowski kicking in crunch time.
Greg Zuerlein’s fourth-quarter miss surely swung some money in Vegas, though it probably wasn’t anything the book-makers would cry about. You know the old adage of “the house always wins” when it comes to gambling? Well, the house was the big winner on Super Bowl Sunday. A Patriots win meant no Rams 20-1 futures tickets cashed and a boring game with little action meant the house cleaned up on prop bets. With that in mind, I suppose our friends in the desert won’t mind me getting the Patriots at 6/1 back in December or the AFC representative as a +125 moneyline underdog. It’s always the small victories for me because they’ll add up over time. (At least that’s what I keep telling myself.)
The play of the game might have been Jason McCourty ranging like nobody’s business to breakup what should have been a touchdown with a better, more accurately spun ball:
I reckon this was important, too:
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to realize the halftime show isn’t going to appeal to everyone. HOWEVER, Atlanta is one of the most influential music cities in the country and I thought this Super Bowl deserved a better, more thorough, and wide-ranging performance than what we received. As far as I’m concerned, the best part was when it ended.
There is never a bad time to share Prince’s performance at Super Bowl XLI:
Group chat was more interesting than the Super Bowl:
Well said, Andrew:
YEP:
It’s OK, the Bears got next. Just ask their new kicker:
Heads up: it’s a very good day to stock up on chargers and charging-related gear, because Anker stuff is a Deal of the Day at Amazon. They are cheap, but good.
NEWSLETTER
