A Super Bowl to forget

I have to confess I was not looking forward to Super Bowl Sunday. There were too many variables involved that excited my loathing. First there were the two teams on the field that I felt a long-standing animosity toward, in particular the New York Giants. Unlike the Green Bay Packers last season—the team that was many people’s pre-season pick to win the Super Bowl and had courageously battled through injury after injury and finally jelled as a team with mix-and-match parts—the Giants just sloughed-off during the season, only backing into the playoffs because Dallas played like they were scared of their own shadows. A lazy team like the Giants that was beaten at home by the Seattle Seahawks didn’t deserve to be “rewarded” with playing in the Super Bowl by upstaging teams who played hard all year.

There were others that I didn’t care about, like Kelly Clarkson singing the national anthem, and Madonna as the halftime “entertainment.” The increasingly rotund Clarkson is a country “artist” whose songs imbue revenge fantasies, self-pity and endless grievances against men, even though she admits she has never had a “real” boyfriend and has suggested she has a greater affection for females anyways. Clarkson also recently opined that she is a fan of Ron Paul, apparently because he is into freedom kind of stuff; when it was pointed out to her that Paul’s “newsletters” are full of “contributions” from neo-fascist and white supremacist types, she defended herself by claiming ignorance, and that she was all for civil rights kind of stuff, and wasn’t prejudiced at all. In regard to Madonna, I’ve already discussed my feelings about her a few times. I read a story about her on-going feud with Elton John, who apparently has little appreciation for Madonna’s efforts to become a fake Brit, fake accent and all. When Sir Elton heard that Madonna was going to “sing” at the Super Bowl, he sarcastically mused about how well she would lip synch her songs.

But before all of that, there was the pre-game festivities, much of it surrounding Peyton Manning and his future. ESPN’s Steven A. Smith, who is the human equivalent of finger nails scraping across a chalk board, vociferated about how Manning was being “disrespected” by Colts owner Jim Irsay. Smith complained that Irsay was trying to force Manning into retirement when he could still play. This all somehow had a familiar “ring” to it. There was a video of this conversation on ESPN’s website, and I wrote the following in the comments section:

“I seem to remember that Steven A. Smith bashed Brett Favre for wanting to come back after having one of his best seasons. What a hypocrite. Everyone knew that Ted Thompson wanted to force Favre into retiring so that they could start their ‘new era.’"

Almost immediately a person who had been glorifying Manning as the Second Coming took offense:

“sorry, but anything that uses Favre as an example is auto fail in my eyes - at least the last 4-5 years of his career.”

Now those are fighting words. Being a die-hard Favre “supporter,” I was up to the challenge:

“You got to be kidding or one of those Favre haters. He had a 107.2 passer rating at the age of 40. No one has ever done that.”

Of course, when you bring-up such uncomfortable facts, you are likely to excite frothing at the mouth:

“its not his playing im talking about - his wishy washy BS and antics soured the game in my opinion - dont hold teams hostage because you cant make up your own f'n mind.”

I wondered if injecting some reality to the proceedings would change his perspective:

“Well, we are just going to have to disagree rather strongly. In order to play after taking a beating and countless injuries over 297 straight starts, Favre's "game" was to avoid mini camps and OTAs in those last five years. His teammates understood that, even if some commentators or the likes of you don't understand that.”

He obviously didn’t understand the wink and a nod aspects of how teams keep their star quarterbacks ready to play:

“then stipulate that in your contract any of the teams he signed with would have agreed to anything for him to ink the contract.”

And:

“so yes we will simply have to disagree strongly and thank you for your hinting at me being ignorant.”

Well, I hadn’t said that, but if that is the case, then it shouldn’t pain him too much if I threw in this little zinger before I signed-off:

“Well, at least we can say that Favre never took $26 million in cold cash for never playing a down.”

And then there was “The Game.” I didn’t hear Clarkson’s rendition of the National Anthem, but given the current tendency to goofy vocal gymnastics that passes for “singing” these days, I’m sure I didn’t miss anything of artistic value. The game started off just like the divisional playoff game between Green Bay and the Giants, with the Patriots looking completely lost as Bill Belichick and his offensive coordinator were squabbling about the offense’s ineffectiveness—which allowed the Giants to dominate time of possession at a 2-1 clip. But down 9-0, the Patriots finally showed some life, taking a one-point lead at halftime. Then She arrived, like some Egyptian queen carried aloft by her male slaves. Madonna then sang three songs familiar to the previous generation. It was hard to tell if she was lip synching or not (the consensus is that she did), but in any case it was only the words to three or four songs she had to remember. Although "Vogue" and "Like a Prayer" are among her best remembered, but are still not “classics” that justified her hype; you never hear Madonna on the local 80’s “oldies” radio station. I will give Madonna credit for staging a eye-catching show, but otherwise the whole thing was ultimately as forgettable as the Black Eyed Peas last year. Even that female rapper who tried to "spice" things up by flipping the bird only proved that she was a rude idiot.

Initially the second half of the game lifted my spirits considerably; the Patriots waltzed right down the field and scored, suddenly up 17-9 and the Giants seemingly on the ropes. But that would turn out to be the last gasp for the Patriots on offense; they had their opportunities, but sacks, failure to convert on third down at midfield and a costly interception in the Giants’ territory allowed the Giants to creep back in with two field goals, and after another Patriots’ drive stalled near mid-field the Giants had the ball on their own 12 with less than four minutes play. I actually thought that the Patriots defense would step-up like the Packers did last year, but I was horribly wrong. The Giants, who all season relied on one or two giant plays to stick a knife in the hearts of opponents who had immobilized them for 90 percent of the game, had none until Eli Manning connected with Mario Manningham for a 38-yard pass play on that drive. I knew then it was over, and time wasn’t on the side of the Patriots. It appeared that Belichick “allowed” the Giants to score a touchdown in the hopes that there would be just enough seconds to drive the ball down field to match that score, just as Mike Holmgren thought to do against Denver in the 1997 Super Bowl. But like then, it was a hollow fantasy; after he completed a Super Bowl record 16 straight passes, the Giants defensive front hounded Brady into his initial ineffectiveness, completing only 7 of his last 18 passes.

In the end, the 21-17 score did little to mask the extent to which the Patriots were out-manned and even out-coached: The Belichick-Brady Era is effectively over. And now we have to tolerate Eli Manning and his hang-dog face that laughs at our indignation about what is right and fair, and once again cheating the fate that his team rightly deserved.