NFL: Six Way Too Late Super Bowl Thoughts

As we all know by now, the New England Patriots staged a furious fourth quarter comeback and then survived one of the weirdest final minutes in Super Bowl history to defeat the Seattle Seahawks.

That was two days ago. Naturally late, here's the cliffs notes version of what I thought of the game. 

No, this isn't a throwaway blog to keep me committed to writing. No, I'm not making it short because I just finished a stupidly time-consuming (yet totally menial at the same time) project for school. Ok, fine, of course those two things are true.

Thought #1: The most talked about and widely discussed moment of the entire game was Seattle's final offensive play, where Russell Wilson inexplicably passed the ball and was picked off by Malcolm Butler. Yeah, it was a dumb play call by Pete Carroll and company, especially with Marshawn Lynch in the backfield, and it was even worse throw by Wilson. Lost in the discussion is what an incredible break on the ball Butler made, essentially gambling on the route being run; he guessed right and somewhat easily outmuscled Ricardo Lockette for the ball. This has been dissected to death, so there really isn't any point in going on and wasting time reiterating what countless others have said.

Thought #2: Tom Brady was named MVP (more on that in a second). Somehow that designation, greatly aided by the play above, is what justifies those who consider him among the greatest NFL quarterbacks of all time; apparently six championship game appearances and 13 insanely productive and consistent seasons (excluding the year he tore his ACL in Week One) aren't enough ammo. Look, I love ranking guys with the best of them. But come on, this isn't even a question: Tom Brady one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. For me, it's not worth the discussion, even to compare him to the likes of Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, or other past greats; there's no way to truly rank them given the teams they played on given they all played in different eras against different competition with different teammates. That some, like Tim Hasselbeck, would try to marginalize Brady's accomplishments even slightly, even in a relative sense, is asinine. Again, I enjoy rankings, and I enjoy discussion, but sometimes there are moments when talking heads need to just sit back and enjoy what's in front of our eyes.

Thought #3: All of that said, Brady didn't deserve to be the MVP. Yes, he had the Patriots' offense running like a well-oiled machine in the final quarter. But it's also arguable that he was partly the reason they needed a massive comeback in the first place, having thrown two AWFUL picks earlier in the game, one of which came in the red zone on what looked to be an obvious scoring drive. No, the real MVP of the game was Julian Edelman; not only did he catch nine passes for 109 yards including the eventual game-winning touchdown, not only did he play through getting absolutely destroyed (and possibly concussed, which if the case means there is no way he should have been allowed to finish the game) by Kam Chancellor early in fourth quarter, but he was a vocal voice throughout the game, often talking a fair amount of trash to the usually-more-vocal Seattle defense. He as the heart and soul of the team, providing both big plays and making both his presence and personality felt on the football field; that's MVP worthy.

Thought #4: How football fans across the country haven't resorted to cutting themselves these last couple of days is beyond me; the commercials that aired during the game were some of the most depressing things I've ever seen. Seriously, Nationwide, what the heck was that?

 Thought #5: Someone needs to have a camera on Rob Gronkowski at all times during these coming months. Johnny Manziel only wished he could party as hard as I expect Gronk to get down during the spring and early summer. 

Thought #6: The halftime show featuring Katy Perry, Lenny Kravitz, and Missy Elliott wasn't quite as good as the previous season, but it was still solid. I couldn't get through the final song without thinking of Kim Jong-un though.