Greatness

My days of caring deeply about the NFL are long gone, but there I was last night, sitting down to a feast of nachos, and buffalo chicken sliders, to watch the game. I'm an American. It's what we do.

The Super Bowl is more than just a game. It's more like an event. There's the game itself, which more often than not is a blowout, but there's also the commercials and the halftime show. Oh yeah, there's also the tense, hold your breath moment right before the game when the latest greatest pop icon massacres the national anthem. This time however, country heartthrob, Luke Bryan did a passable job except for the fact that it was way too slow.

I haven't read any reviews of the night's commercials yet, but from where I sat, I believe it safe to say that America has officially lost its sense of humor. Worst. Commercials. Ever. Even the beer commercials weren't funny. Budweiser offered a morality tale about immigration, with young Aldophus Busch sloughing his way across this hateful, venom-spewing country, to St. Louis, where he could get busy building his brewery into a money-printing monolith. Bud Lite literally resurrected Spuds Mackenzie (who knew he was dead?) in a particularly unfunny minute long offering. There seemed to be an awful lot of commercials for movies. I made a mental note to not go to see any of them.

As far as the actual game goes, it was the New England Patriots vs. the Atlanta Falcons. The Patriots are so easy to hate. They seem to always play in the Super Bowl for one thing, and although everyone loves a winner, everybody hates a winner who wins too much. Ask Tiger Woods, Jimmy Johnson, and the New York Yankees. With great success comes great animosity. With New England, there's their grumbling, fashion challenged head coach, Bill Belichick, who possesses all of the charisma of a loaf of stale bread. There's the club's owner, Robert Craft, wealthy beyond all reason, who made his bones by buying the worst electric razor company in the history of civilization, and parlaying that into a global conglomerate. Of course, with all the cheating allegations, especially Deflategate, the Patriots have turned into the team everyone loves to hate.

Then there's Tom Brady, he of the matinee idol good looks, gorgeously hot model-wife, and collection of Super Bowl rings. He's the guy every other guy wants to be and every woman wants to be with. What's not to hate? After last night, the answer is...nothing.

With his team down by 25 points halfway through the third quarter, Brady-haters were having a field day. Meanwhile, on the field, number 12 looked unfazed. So, what does he do? Of course, he does what nobody else had ever done. . . rally his team back from an insurmountable deficit to win his fifth Super Bowl and fourth Super Bowl MVP. Deflate THIS.

I may not be a Patriot fan or a Tom Brady fan for that matter, but I am a fan of greatness, and I know it when I see it. Tom Brady is simply the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. I kinda knew it before last night. But after last night, the only people alive who don't know it are the unrepentant haters.

Well, yeah. . .there's that thing with Bridget Moynihan when he left her for Gisele while she was pregnant with his child, but this is America, the land of flawed heros. We can forgive an awful lot for a tight spiral. And nobody throws them better than Tom freaking Brady.

Super Bowl Observations

Midway through the third period of last nights game, I was feeling rather smug about my prediction of a Seattle blowout. The Seahawks were up 24-14, and the wheels appeared to be coming off for New England. Then Tom Brady started doing what he's been doing for the past 15 years, playing the quarterback position with robotic efficiency, slinging perfect passes to his latest collection of midget receivers.

It's very easy to dislike a guy like Brady, he of the cleft chin matinee idol good looks, the Warren Buffet sized bank account and the smoking hot wife. He of the breezy, effortless confidence and annoying Uggs billboards. But there is no denying his accomplishments on the football field,where he simply has no contemporary peer, having just won his fourth Super Bowl. The fact that he led his team to two fourth quarter touchdowns to win the game should come as a surprise to absolutely no one.

Still, there were the Seahawks driving down the field for the winning score with time winding down, aided by a miraculous bobbling catch that put the ball on the five yard line. After Marshawn Lynch dragged 11 guys down to the one with 30 seconds left, it seemed a sure bet that Seattle was about to steal the game. Then, for reasons that escape me and roughly 20 million other football fans, Pete Carroll decides to NOT give the ball to the most devastating running back I've seen play the game since Earl Campbell. Instead, he calls for a pass, a slant to somebody named Davey Crockett or something. Some other nameless rookie intercepts the ball. Game over. The cameras cut to Brady jumping up and down on the sidelines like a middle schooler. Pete Carroll hangs his head in disbelief at his own stupidity. What a finish!

Of course, there was a halftime show. Katy Perry and a cast of thousands. My son pointed out to me that the halftime show at the Super Bowl long ago ceased to be about music, having instead become mini- Olympic Games opening ceremonies. As such, this one was pretty dazzling. Everyone kept their clothes on, there were virtually no hyper-sexualized themes, and Miss Perry's outfits were kinda cool.

This year's commercials were...surprising. It seemed like no matter the product being pitched, the theme was "aren't Dads great?" One ad after another extolled the many virtues of fatherhood. There's Dad making breakfast with his little boy at 2 in the morning. There's Dad picking up his crying high school daughter in the pouring rain. There's Dad dropping his daughter off at the airport, tears flooding his eyes. It was quite refreshing actually. Normally, Dad is depicted as a clumsy, incompetent rube in commercials, always having to be bailed out by the wise wife. It was nice to see men depicted as something besides money-grubbing, ass-grabbing drunks.

So another football season can be laid to rest, leaving us only 63 days removed from the first pitch of baseball season. Yeah, baby!!