It has become a hidden tradition for me to watch Superbowl every year, despite disappointment in the game and coverage quality in the years before. It started as before: pre-game show, pre-pre-game show, coin toss show and kick-off show … It is clear that the show is planned by and for advertisers and not for the viewers. That is a shame and a disgrace – the viewer must be the master of the TV programming and NOT the advertisers. In soccer the program starts, you see the captains exchange a handshake, you see the referee throw a coin and 10-15 seconds later the game is going full steam. Why do you need 3 ad breaks and 2 songs before the game is beyond me – get to the game!
The camera work and NBC commentary is MUCH better than last year – stable shots with good close-ups and explanations that actually make sense even to people that are not American football experts. Oh and they actually use units – saying “they won x out of y games this season” and not “they are x in y this season”, mostly at least.
The game had more fun than usual in the beginning, but the legal things slow it up again – it is weird that a guy got over the line but was called beck because of the knee touching and then a penalty for a ‘false start’? Too much rules and regulations. Soon you’ll have a team of lawyers on the sidelines and lawyer drafts will be more important than player drafts. And then again ‘holding’ and ‘chopping’ – isn’t that what the blockers are supposed to do? Is that some kind of sissy sport?
Maybe not. 100 yard interception return run … I am speechless. Now that was a great, great play. That episode alone made watchig this thing worth it. Not the best sport thing I’ve seen, but the best American football moment for sure.
I like the basis of the game, it is a good game, but there is way too much fluff on it. That game needs to be cut down – less rules, less breaks, less interruption, less advertisements, less time to think and relax for the players. 10 seconds of play and 5 minutes of players chatting is not a sport, even curling has more action. The whole Superbowl should be over in 1 hour real time. If the TV transmission starts at 17:00, it should be done before 18:00. There is no content there to justify anything longer than that.
Why is there a limited number of challenges? Do the referees make only a limited number of mistakes per game? No. Illogical.
And when I though it was done and sealed, Arizona does a great drive and get a great touchdown. One more drive like that and the game could go either way. Now that is a good game. But again penalties spoil the whole game … Fitsgerald gets a touchdown, another great play to turn the game around, but only because of the holding penalty giving Arizona ‘safety’ score. Not deserving in my opinion. And the Steelers drive back … AMAZING game! Now this is actually close to the best sports game that I have ever seen. I sure was not expecting that. And Arizona tries to drive back again. I was sleepy when I started to watch this, no sleep now. That was a great game. Despite all the commercialization, it is still a great game and it is very watchable if you download it from the Internet or watch it with TiVo and can skip the adds and the slow parts.
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