I probably should have been cheering on the Philadelphia Eagles given that I do live in Pennsylvania. Truth be told, I am a Chicago Bears fan and will be for at least the foreseeable future and I probably feel more aligned with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
James Carville, the ragin' cajun, said it best when he described Pennsylvania as really being three different states. Pittsburgh on the west, Philadelphia in the east and Alabama in the middle. He's not too far off the mark there. The only reason why this state was considered a "blue state" in the last election was because of the populations in those Eastern and Western parts of the state. The middle of Pennsylvania is fairly red.
Back to the story at hand though. Yes, the NE Pats won but was it me or was the game really kinda dull? Appearing more like a mid-season battle between the two teams? Here are some other thoughts:
- Once again, the best ads were from Budweiser. Bring back the frogs!
- Paul McCartney's half time show was very much on the conservative side and fortunately there were no complaints about him removing his shirt to reveal another shirt. Red no less. Seeing him play his old Hofner bass reminded me that The Beatles first came to America in February of 1964 and here, February of 2005 playing that same guitar. That is one valuable musical instrument and is probably around 50 years old, if you guess that he probably bought it around 1955.
- As part of Fox's launch of the second half of the game, they played U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday," a song about the January 30, 1972 massacre in Northern Ireland. It's not about a Sunday sports event. Seems like a bad choice. Then again, I still see people dancing to Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA," which is not a happy song.
- There were only so many ads this year and they were all largely tame. Janet Jackson's costume malfunction still stings. And what also hurt was the frequency to which the Fox network went to commercials. Yeah, there was a game in there somewhere just to say it was the Super bowl.
- Bring on March Madness. I like football but just can't bring myself to the idea of watching Arena Football. Go Fighting Illini!
