Not That There's Anything Wrong With That...

Was as it as good for you as it was for me, coach? Was it just me or was this one of the gayer Super Bowls in recent memory?

Not only did you have a rather androgynous dude perform at halftime, but he plastered his male/female symbol everywhere.

There was at least one gay-themed ad, with the two guys eating a Snickers from both ends and who end up having their lips meet. Oh, and in the new "Survivor" ad, one guy goes, "I got to be friends with Richard, but not in a homosexual way".

And then there is the above photo, with Tony Dungy gazing into Peyton Manning's eyes. I hope Peyton carried him across the threshold later. I hope he was gentel, too.

Again, as the post is titled, Not That There's Anything Wrong With That!

Stupor Bowl

Well, no surprises here.

--The slick ball and turnovers made it more interesting than it had any right to be.

--The halftime show was maybe the best I've ever seen. I know, I know, that's like saying, "Wow that was the best case of genital warts I've ever had." But I don't even like Prince.

--The commercials were decidedly so-so. My favorite was probably the K-Fed one, followed by the Bud Light one with the face slapping.

--My least favorite was the Fed-Ex one on the moon. It started out promising but the unfunnily grisly ending totally ruined it for me. I guess we should be relieved the guy didn't die a slow death floating out in the hard vacuum of space, but instead got killed by a fiery meteor (why was it on fire, there's no atmosphere on the moon to cause friction)?

Worst Football Play of the Year?

Gregg Easterbrook, the economic and social policy wonk who moonlights as a football analyst on ESPN.com, rips the Seattle Seahawks for their collapsed play on Sunday, when they faced 3rd and 10 with about a minute to go, needing to just get in range to boot the winning field goal.

Now, admittedly, that play was one of a string of plays the Seahawks either failed to execute on or that the Bears just stymied. But Easterbrook singles out this particular play as the Single Worst Play of the Season So Far.

Huh?

He blames the offensive line for just standing around instead of blocking for Hasselbeck. Fine, they blew their assignments. But Single Worst Play of the Season So Far? Worse than Romo's botched field goal hold? Worse than virtually any play run by the Raiders?

Easterbrook then goes on to detail a litany of bad judgement on the part of the Chargers, who were pretty much assumed to be guaranteed a Super Bowl appearance. The Seahawks, by contrast, were a struggling 9-7 team that battled a real contender to a standstill. No one expected the Seahawks to win.

Plus, if you had to pick the worst play of that game, it was the play immediately before Easterbrooks Single Worst Play of the Season So Far. I wrote about that here.

I might have to go watch those plays on TiVo again.

Heartbreak

Well, that was disappointing. Not unexpected, but disappointing nonetheless. The tough thing was that the Seahawks actually played some of their best football of the year. They could have won -- not on a Romo-esque fluke, but through talent, skill and perseverance. They lost. The defeat was all the more painful given how close victory was.

From where I was sitting, the key offensive play that blew the game was when it was 2nd and 10 with about a minute to go in regulation. The Seahawks just needed 6 or 7 yards to put Josh Brown -- one of the game's elite clutch kickers -- in range. So what happens? Hasselbeck airs it out to the endzone and waaaay overshoots the receiver. Now it's 3rd and 10 and they failed to advance far enough. Why were they calling a pass play -- much less one to the endzone, when the running back was having a 100-yard game? To be fair, it sounds like the play was designed to do something difference, and that tricksy Bears defense messed it up:

"I was surprised we threw the ball there," Holmgren said. "I was hoping to get a bit of extra yardage, maybe kick a long field goal. I don't know if we were fooled by the coverage. Maybe they adjusted their coverage. I was not going for a long one. We were trying to do something else."

I really wish I could say something about how the Bears played dirty, how the officiating sucked, or whatever. But hey, this wasn't Super Bowl XL. It was a remarkably clean game, the refs called it fairly, and the Bears played their hearts out. Despite the doubts, Grossman had a sweet 30-yard pass in OT that set them up for the winning figgie.

I highly recommend Art Thiel's column from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (linked above). Thiel proves why he's the only sports writer in the Emerald City I make a point of reading regularly:

The season was hardly devoid of fortune. It is not unreasonable to suggest the Bears kicked the field goal that a week earlier the Cowboys should have kicked, but didn't, for reasons perhaps better explained in monasteries, synagogues, bars and other places of worship.

Wow

Well, that was exciting. I refer, of course, to Seattle's 21-20 win over Dallas in the wild card playoff game. That was perhaps the biggest nail-biter of a game I've ever seen. The momentum shifted several times in the last couple minutes alone.

Seattle's defense actually played pretty well, considering they had to recruit a new cornerback who a week before wasn't even in the NFL. Yeah, they gave up 20 points but they made the big stops when it counted. The offense was mediocre at best, but obviously scored (just) enough to win.

But the final few minutes contained enough wackiness to keep the analysts talking for weeks.

--Pass interference against Dallas on a play to the endzone, giving Seattle the ball on the 1. The Dallas D stuffs 'em three times, Seattle goes for the TD on 4th down and fails, so...

--On the next drive, Dallas starts from their own 2 or so. Ball is caught to the left but the player slips and Seattle defender forces a fumble -- into the endzone. First Seattle players tries to fall on the ball, misses. Ball bounces out of bounds but hasn't touched the ground, Seattle defender dives over and knocks it back into the endzone, where a Seahawk grabs it and keeps both feet in before going out of bounds. Touchdown! Oh wait, replay shows the guy who knocked the ball back in had one foot out of bounds by about 1 inch. Seattle settles for the 2 point safety. I thought the refs should have given them the TD just basically as awesome style points. But things turn out okay because...

--Dallas has to kick the ball back to Seattle, which very quickly puts it in the endzone to go up 21-20 before the PAT attempt. They go for 2 but miss. Aiyeee. Dallas has another shot, and in fact they...

--Drive down and need to get either in the endzone for a score or to the 1 yard line for a first down. Pass right, receiver gets the first down. Oh wait, that play is reviewed and ruled he was half a yard short. Dallas decides to go for the field goal, and here's where things got really wild, because...

--The Dallas kicker has to boot a 19 yard field goal. That's shorter than a PAT kick. If he makes it, they go up 23-21, and the Seahawks will have just over a minute to get into field-goal range. Here's what I thought happened as it unfolded: Romo takes the snap, but the ball doesn't take to the air. It's been blocked! No, there goes Romo running to the left! It was a fake! Oh shit, he's at the 3, the 2, the 1! And wrapped up by Seattle defenders! Holy shit, the ball is loose! Seattle has it! Then the replay showed what really happened: Romo flubbed the hold. He took the snap fine but didn't get the ball in place. The kicker never had a shot. It was quick thinking of Romo to run with it and by God he almost had it. Now Seattle's up 21-20 and they have the ball with just over a minute left. But wait...

--Dallas has 3 timeouts. Seattle runs three times, and Dallas uses all their timeouts. Seattle takes a delay of game penalty on 4th down, moving the ball back 5 yards but working the clock down to about 8 seconds. Punt unit comes on. Boom one deep, and it's all but over. But wait...

--The snap is low, and the punter barely gets the ball off in time. Even then, it only goes a measly 27 yards before corkscrewing out of bounds at midfield. There are two seconds on the clock and Romo comes back out for one last heave to the endzone...

--Where there is a knot of Seahawks and Cowboys, and the ball clangs to the ground incomplete.
An ugly, wacky, improbable, impossible, and utterly fantastic win.

Next up: the Bears or the Saints.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.