Super Bowl Aftermath

Now that another Super Bowl has come and gone, so come the complaints about everything from the play on the field to the commercials. Almost every year it's the same thing, once everyone sobers up they are griping and complaining, or just flat-out bummed, because the event didn't live up to expectations. But that is the first problem of the whole scenario, the event is too hyped up to begin with. No single sporting event in the U.S. receives the exposure that the Super Bowl does, primarily because it’s the most popular sport in America, but also because it’s the only major professional sport in which a single game, rather than a series, determines a champion. But that is where the accommodations should end. There’s no reason to try and cater to non-football fans and make the Super Bowl out to be the must-see event of the year like it’s the season finale of “24”. If you didn’t care about football before this game, why would you care now?

As for actual football fans, you need to smarter about getting sucked into the hype and succumbing to the talking heads. It doesn’t help when you’re force-fed this trash from ever sports outlet for two straight weeks, which is why they need to eradicate the 2-week hiatus between the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl. I get that the players involved want to take care of all the logistics surrounding the Super Bowl, which can be distracting if they only had one week, but let the organization worry about that stuff as more focus is lost with the 2-week layoff and the media gauntlet players go through as a result of it. That’s why 75% of the time the final scores are lopsided and one of the teams undoubtedly makes you wonder how they got there in the first place. Unfortunately as it stands now, this system is in place, so you only have yourself to blame if you get so intoxicated from “pre-game preparation” that you’re passed out by the opening kickoff.

I for one wasn’t letdown by the actual game, you know why? Because I paid no credence to it till it actually started. Admittedly, I had no vested interest in either team, or any team in the playoffs this year for that matter (yes, I’m bitter the Bengals underachieved), but there is nothing to talk about for 336 hours, so why listen? Go find something productive to do, you always see these NFLers requesting your assistance from United Way, so help your guys out or something. Then when the game is on, watch it, and if it happens to be disappointing, oh well, you only wasted 3 and half hours. Trust me, the less important you make something out to be, the less upset you will be when it falters. It’s not like any fan didn’t know what to expect anyway. Rex Grossman is garbage and Peyton Manning isn’t. Peyton wasn’t lights out, but he didn’t need to be, as long as he and the offense didn’t have a complete meltdown, you knew there was no way the Bears would be able to score enough points to win the game. So were the Colts a lock? Of course not, but when there’s too much evidence refuting the defiance of conventional wisdom, stop thinking so much.

Another thing that aggravated me was all the complaints about the weather, I mean this is still football, right? Last I checked throughout the regular season and the playoffs the elements play a factor in games played in non-domed stadiums, so why come the most important game of the season should we suddenly fix it so that the game is played in the perfect environment? It’s bad enough the game always gets shifted to a warm weather setting, but now there’s an outcry for it to always be played in a dome. The game should be cycled amongst all the cities that have a team, and if it happens a Super Bowl is played in a blizzard, so be it, the unpredictability of nature is part of the essence of the game. The real reason behind any of this isn’t the actual play on the field, both teams are dealt the same circumstance so one team isn’t getting an advantage, but rather the fact the media and the people who can actually afford tickets (i.e. soft, rich people) want to be comfortable. Ironically, this furthers the argument for why the game should be cycled throughout the league, as anything that deters non-football fans from attending and media orgies is a positive thing.

Of course if shellacking the game and the weather wasn’t enough, people were equally critical of the commercials. Do I feel they were anything to rave about? No, but do you remember the ones from last year, or the year before that? If you don’t, go check a commercial archive, they sucked! Like always the beer commercials provided at least a chuckle, but this year there were actually a few memorable standouts like the ones from Sierra Mist, the beard comb-over was classic (mainly because I can see 40-something, self-conscious men really doing this), and Snickers’ “Lady and the Tramp” spoof. Yeah, gay jokes are old, but when in doubt go with bread and butter, it certainly works better than Emerald Nuts’ nonsensical Robert Goulet ad. If this is somehow funny, maybe I’m not old enough to care why. I get that he is an old crooner, but what does that have to do with him being some office scourge? If this was meant to be funny for the sake of randomness or something, then well, that’s just not funny. So yeah, it seemed like most companies tried too hard, but it says something about the absurdity of the game when the commercials surrounding it have become an event in of themselves.

The only thing it seemed people weren’t completely dissatisfied with was the halftime show. Of course I can’t comment because I didn’t watch it, I never do. I never understood why even it had to become some extra incentive to watch the game. That is, incentive for people who don’t even like football to watch for the promise they’ll at least walk away with some entertainment value. Too bad football is boring, huh? If it wasn’t bad enough that these people are distracting to those who want to actually watch the game at Super Bowl parties, which begs the question of what’s the point of attending a Super Bowl party unless forced by a significant other (in which I may suggest growing a pair), but why does everything in and surrounding the game have to be about everything but the actual game?

I don’t want to see a dog running around catching Frisbees just as much as the next guy, but how come it seems the only alternative is to have some lame song and dance act self-promote themselves, as if there wasn’t enough of that already imbedded into the Super Bowl. Which brings me back to the ads for a moment; I can’t remember which one it was (goes to show how effective it was), but one them had like seven different brands being advertised in one 30-second spot. I thought my head would explode from the over saturation of subliminal secretions, I guess they at least got their moneys worth though.

But back to halftime, I don’t understand why more people don’t use this opportunity wisely. It’s the perfect time to get some grub, use the bathroom, do whatever you need to do that you couldn’t while sitting in front of the tube. Sure, you could do this stuff during the commercial breaks, but then there’s a chance you could miss something mildly amusing, when was the last time a halftime shown was even remotely amusing? Yeah, I missed Justin cop a feel on Janet, I got over it after 6 seconds, and since that time things have only gotten worse. In an attempt to be conservative, organizers seem to try to dig up any fossil they can and put them on stage, but I don’t think they even know what demographic they are trying to draw anymore. It’s embarrassing. You might as well just run commercials the entire hour, or however long it is now. Seriously, the whole thing is about money anyway.

One final note about the actual game, I found it interesting that the past two Super Bowl champions’ titles came the year after they were the favorite to win it all heading into the playoffs. Given this trend, it would seem like the odds-on favorite to win it next year would be the Chargers. The one difference, however, is that in the previous two years, the #1 seed was upset by the team that would go onto to win the Super Bowl. The Steelers lost to the Patriots in ’05 and the Colts lost to the Steelers in ’06, and obviously the Chargers lost to the Patriots this year. So basically what this all proves is that the Bengals will win the Super Bowl in ‘08. Okay, maybe not.