Some Thoughts on Super Bowl LX

 

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Super Bowl LX Champions

Seattle Seahawks

So the Super Bowl has been played, and a new champion crowned. Another NFL season is now done and gone. 

Admittedly, the Super Bowl has always fascinated me. Ever since I was a kid, I read books and other material and watched videos about each of the Super Bowls. It is in many respects simply an NFL game, yet it is also more than that. It can bring out the very best - or the very worst - in some teams, who either rise to the occasion or, sometimes, spectacularly fail to do so. Think of the teams that rose and blossomed during the Super Bowl, like the '85 Bears, the '89 and '94 49ers, or the '92 Cowboys. Or the teams which played their very worst games of the season at the Super Bowl, like the '85 Patriots, the '89 and 2013 Denver Broncos, or the '92 Buffalo Bills. Highlight material that underscored the level of excellence for some, performances which were forgettable for others.

It felt like the Seahawks level of dominance might have been of that brilliant level. Six sacks, three turnovers, and that pick six which essentially iced the game for them.

Meanwhile, the Patriots had a largely forgettable performance, with Drake Maye and the offense only really getting going in the fourth quarter. Officially, the Pats earned well over 300 yards and 18 first downs on offense. But often times - and this seems true especially in Super Bowls, for some reason - the numbers are not indicative of how the game actually went. The Buffalo Bills got absolutely dominated by the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XXVI. At one point, they were losing 37-10 in the fourth quarter, which was actually how the game felt to that point. Then they scored two late touchdowns to pad those numbers and make the game look superficially far closer than it actually was, as the final score of 37-24 might make it seem like they were at least somewhat competitive. Which they were not. There are plenty of other examples, as well. 

That seems to have been the case with this Super Bowl, as well. Those total offensive numbers by New England might seem quite respectable at first glance, but they are deceptive. In fact, the true story of how the Patriots offense played, upon closer examination, would be far more telling. Here's the story of the game, and the match-up between the Pats offense and the Seahawks defense in a nutshell: the Patriots scored 0 points and produced 78 yards and five first downs through the first three quarters. Seattle scored the first touchdown of the game by either team early in the fourth quarter, and that put them up 19-0. That is actually how most of the game felt. 

Granted, the Pats finally fought back a little late in the fourth quarter. But by that time, there really was no doubt about who was going to win. The suspense was minimal, more of a "can they pull off an unbelievable miracle?" sort.  

The answer was no. Indeed, the Pats finally scored some points and produced some yards and first downs. But it was not indicative of them being particularly competitive. Just making the game look, statistically, closer than it actually was. 

So here are some statistics, just off the top of my head. Here goes:

The NFC has now expanded it's overall lead in Super Bowls. NFC teams have won 31, while the AFC has won 29. Still quite close, of course.

One of the things which everyone seemed to note leading up to recent Super Bowl was the dominance of teams wearing their white jerseys. However, the team wearing dark jerseys now has won three Super Bowls in a row. The Chiefs beat the 49ers while wearing their dark home jerseys in LVIII, the Eagles beat the Chiefs last year wearing their dark home jerseys, and now the Seahawks dominated the Patriots while wearing their dark home jerseys. Maybe the trend is reversing itself or, at least, balancing itself out just a bit. 

The pregame ceremonies seemed to just drag on way too long for my tastes. Player introductions, the national anthem, the singing of "America the Beautiful," introducing Super Bowl MVP's from previous years, the coin toss, which never seemed more elaborate than it did on Sunday's game. They even had someone come out with a little box with the coin inside, and made a huge presentation of it. In the old days, they would just briefly explain things and then do the coin toss. The game was supposed to start at 6:30 PM EST, but it actually was more like 6:40 PM EST. Maybe it's time to start it earlier again, or at least shorten and/or curtail the ceremonial aspects. It's just too damn long, it seems to me. 

For whatever the reason, games played outside in the sunshine (at least in the first half) on the West Coast tend to not be particularly competitive. This one followed that trend. The only West Coast Super Bowls which actually were competitive and exciting that I can recall were Super Bowl XXX (to some extent, because it was exciting there for a few minutes in the fourth quarter) and Super Bowl XXXII, when John Elway and the Broncos finally earned their first Super Bowl championship by pulling off a big upset over the heavily favored Green Bay Packers.

Anyway, that's it for now. Possibly more thoughts to come later.