Super Bowl XL

Yeah, I was one of the millions and millions of people glued to my set for the Super Bowl. And why not? It’s been a month since the holidays ended. A long, cold, dark month which produces equally dark nights of the soul, where spring is just a rumor and a soul will do just about anything to reach out, even root for football teams he couldn’t care less about two weeks earlier.

Actually, it was a very pleasant afternoon in the low ‘60s at my house, and I watched the game with three generations playing around me. But the justification still stands. Super Bowl has become a national ritual because it’s played when most of us just need something to do.

It was a good game. It wasn’t high scoring but it was at issue for most of the sixty minutes. There were a couple of dramatic turnarounds, and a few great plays. Best of all, most of what little star work there was performed by second-tier names. That’s always fun, to see some guy who will probably fade off the depth chart in a year or so have a day in the sun. Even when the game’s indoors.

That said, a few random shots:

It’s time we put the great Commercial Watch to rest. It’s gotten lame, lamer and this year was the lamest of all. And it’s only going to get worse, because football has decided that everything has to be clean, wholesome and inoffensive, which means dull. Humor and edge has to be at someone’s expense. When the little old lady slips on the banana peel it’s funny for everyone but the little old lady, but it’s still funny. When the little old lady can’t slip, there’s no funny, no edge.

The funniest ad was the guy tackling the babe who said, “I’m open!” during the pickup football game and I’ve read some complaints about that. Let’s just have Bambi sell the beer and be done with it. I formally declare Commercial Watch dead and gone.

No one loses anymore, they wuz robbed. The Seahawks whine that a few calls didn’t go their way. Big deal. First, most of the calls could have gone either way. That’s life. That’s the difference between A minus and B plus in your term paper, depending on the teacher. You deal with it. What you learn is that if you put down a slam-dunk A plus you don’t have to worry about it. The Seahawks played a C plus. Sit down, have a latte and relax for next year. When all is said and done, most guys in the NFL still earn more in one year than most other guys will make five or ten, or more.

On this point, Joe Montana was dead wrong to demand money for a gathering of Super Bowl MVP’s, then claim he had to see his son’s basketball game over the weekend. Yeah. You ain’t got enough money, so you had to ask for it, and then stiffed the event which helped make you a (rich) household name in the first place because you might miss one of umpteen kids’ games. Why is your son living large again? Oh, because you were a famous football player who won what big game?

Joe was still a great QB but his image as a standup guy has fallen off my chart as of now.

The game drew great ratings because the Steelers are a storied franchise. Several years ago the network pimps were moaning that New England vs. Carolina was a ratings dud, because New England’s baseball and hockey land and most folks couldn’t find “Carolina” on a map.

So let’s end this charade and declare that only cool and highly marketable teams can play in the Super Bowl. After the conference final, the network which airs the game will be allowed to choose whether or not it thinks it’ll make enough money off the teams still standing. If not, they get a nice trophy and the network gets to pick two names of cooler teams out of a hat and make up some reason and trophy for them to play and win. No more whining up in corporate HQ about having to pimp the “wrong” matchup.

(This isn’t restricted to football. In 1997 NBC’s chief of marketing publicly hoped for a four game sweep in a Cleveland-Miami World Series. The Series came down to the last innings of the seventh game, one of the most exciting Series in recent years.)

The best thing about the Super Bowl is that the NFL season’s been stretched into early February. This means that I only have to endure two weeks or so between the last snap of pro football and the opening of the gates at baseball’ spring training. In between, it’s the NBA long pre-tournament exhibition season (a.k.a. “the season”, but when 16 of 29 teams make the postseason tournament, you’re really just playing for the fun of it) and pro hockey, Russia and Canada’s answer to Arena Football. Fun for a couple of guys who don’t date much, but nothing the rest of us can really take seriously.

(To show how confused pro hockey is, a “minor” league team, the Stockton Thunder, has opened up about an hour south of me. It plays in the “East Coast” Hockey League. Heck, even the Triple A Pacific Coast baseball league knows to stop at the Mississippi River.)

Still, overall, it’s great fun. I look forward to next year’s game between the 49ers and Raiders. Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?