What a game, right?
That Super Bowl was quite the show. It was close, it was intense, and it was filled with controversy. It made for some excellent TV, which doesn’t always translate to a great football game. Yet I feel pretty disappointed about this Super Bowl.
Forget the fact I hate New England and Seattle more than any other teams in the NFL. This Super Bowl was actually living up to the hype.
Seattle and New England really were the best teams in the league this year, and the game was filled with great, breath-taking moments. In the end, Tom Brady was on the podium, hoisting his fourth Lombardi Trophy, which is a probably a column-worthy story anywhere else.
The 28-24 game was exciting, and it was even shaping up to be one of the best Super Bowls ever. There were 59 minutes of action that forced football fans to the edge of their seats (unless you were one of my housemates, who fell asleep for the whole game).
However, that last minute of the game produced one of the biggest football farces I have seen in years.
Seattle and New England are two of the most respected franchises in football, with two fantastic coaches. Both Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick made two pretty brutal coaching errors that no one saw coming.
I was screaming for Belichick to call a timeout after Seattle’s first down run to the 1-yard line. It was inevitable Seattle was going to pound it in with Marshawn Lynch, right? I mean, surely you wanted to give Brady time to get into field goal range and send the game into overtime, right? It seemed like Belichick was going to put Brady in an impossible, yet avoidable, situation. I had, and still have, no idea what he was thinking.
As soon as I saw Lynch motioning from the backfield, I yelled at my TV in confusion, screamed when Russell Wilson threw the ball, and stared in awe at the play Malcolm Butler made.
I don’t need to reiterate how dumb those coaching decisions were; you’ve all probably heard enough about that. But what are the odds that two successful coaches make two really bad decisions within the final minute of the Super Bowl?
I still have a tough time believing that sequence of events. I was expecting these two geniuses to win their teams the game, not to lose it. It was a pretty huge letdown to me when both of them made bonehead moves.
I don’t want to see mistakes lose the Super Bowl; I want to see greatness win the Super Bowl.
Yet, what upset me most of all about the game was the scuffle following the interception.
I don’t know why or how it started, but the fact that it happened is ridiculous. I understand emotions are running high, but there’s no need to be a sore loser. It was absolutely childish.
When I was growing up, that was how my neighborhood football games ended. The NFL should suspend Bruce Irvin for his involvement in the scuffle, even though they probably won’t. That will always taint my perception of this game for me.
The most watched TV program in U.S. history was so great for so long, but that last minute ruined it for me. I wish I slept through it.
