Hype Down! Super Bowl Great Not Best (By Lars $)
February 11th, 2009 Posted in Football FixIn this day in age of Facebook chat, I-passes, and illegally downloading new movies to your home computer it easy to call the most recent Super Bowl the greatest of all-time. However, after closer consideration the epic battle between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals, while great, should not be considered the best Super Bowl ever. As thrilling as the last 8 minutes of the fourth quarter were, the first three and a half quarters were rather poorly played, and outside of James Harrison’s 100 yard interception return for a touchdown the game lack excitement. Not to mention that the officials were very involved in the game. I’m not saying that all of their calls were bad, but some were flat out terrible, and there were a lot of penalties called in general. Add the fact that the Cardinals final play was not reviewed on the field by the referee is unacceptable. Granted it was reviewed in the booth, but it his not his job to make that
close of a call at the biggest moment of the biggest game of the season. Besides that the fourth quarter was great, but there have been arguably better and more exciting fourth quarters than the one we saw this weekend.
Super Bowl XXXVIII between Carolina and New England featured 37 fourth quarter points, including touchdown plays of 33 and 85 yards by Carolina, three scores in the last 2 minutes and 51 seconds, and a last second game winning field goal by Adam Vinatieri. I would say an ending just as compelling as Super Bowl XLIII’s. However, great games are not based off of one quarter alone, but as the phrase “great game” would suggest, it is based off the whole game.
This leads me to argue that last year’s Super Bowl between the undefeated Patriots and surprising Giants is the greatest of all time. The Patriots were a Super Bowl victory away from becoming the greatest NFL team ever, this coming from a Dolphins fan. Taking into consideration the parity that we see around the league on a weekly the basis it would be astounding for a team to go 19-0, and the Patriots were that close. The Giants came into the game coming off possibly the greatest post season run in history, beating Tampa Bay on the road, then beating two 13-3 teams (Dallas and Green Bay) on the road in extreme conditions. Despite their success in getting to the Super Bowl not many people gave them the chance against the mighty Pats, but they delivered. Both teams defenses play terrifically, and both offenses answered the call in the fourth quarter when needed. The Giants last drive to win the game was a thing of beauty, and the best drive in Super
Bowl history. It is game that you will be telling your grandchildren you watched, this past Super Bowl, however, will most likely not be.
Back to analyzing the game. During the first quarter of the game my brother and I disagreed about how the Cardinals were running the offense. Pittsburgh’s defense was set up to minimize Larry Fitzgerald and take away the deep passes. So, Kurt Warner and his offense relied on short dump off passes to the running backs and a commitment to the running game. I was of the mind that this strategy was fine if they moved the ball and scored. My brother on the other hand thought that they were playing into the Steelers hands, and that Arizona needed it to be a shootout to win. In the end my brother seemed to be right, but I think Arizona’s problem was that they stuck with this strategy too long. Once it got late into the third quarter and they were trailing by 13 and the running game wasn’t working at all, they needed to switch gears. In the fourth quarter they finally did, which resulted in great performances by Warner and Fitzgerald, but it was too
late. As I am writing this I am hearing that the rumors are true that Todd Haley will become the next head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, but his performance in the biggest game of his career has to be questioned. Just think about how hot of a commodity Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo became after last year dominating performance in the Super Bowl. In my opinion Todd Haley performance was closer to that of then Denver Broncos defensive coordinator Wade Phillips in Super Bowl XXIV. Going into that game Phillips was a top head coaching candidate throughout the league, but after the Broncos suffered a 55-10 drubbing at the hands of the 49ers it would be another four years before he finally became a head coach. Obviously, Scott Pioli has accomplished enough in this league to be trusted with this head coaching decision, so Chiefs fans don’t worry too much.
Random Thoughts:
- The NFC won the coin toss for the twelfth straight year this year. I’m not even going to try and think of the odds of that, but thats plain crazy. Despite winning the toss the NFC is 3-9 in those games. I guess the coin toss doesn’t mean that much after all.
- The teaming wearing their white jerseys have now five straight Super Bowls, which is good news for the NFC for they are scheduled to be the road team in next years Super Bowl. Unless the AFC team choses to wear white like the Steelers did for Super Bowl XL.
- I am a big fan of Bruce Springsteen’s music, but I must say that the highlight of the halftime performance was his crotch first slide into the camera. I’m still trying to decide which I liked more Janet Jackson’s nipple or The Boss’s package.
- Next season and the subsequent Super Bowl will be the final one of the decade, and the AFC wins the Super Bowl it will produce and interesting breakdown of champions throughout the decades. Starting in the 1970s, which was the first decade to have ten Super Bowls every decade has had a conference go 8-2 in the big game. The 70s the AFC went 8-2, in the 80s and 90s the NFC went 8-2 in each, and now so far in the 00s the AFC has gone 7-2 with a chance to complete the symmetry. In case you were wondering the first four Super Bowls were played in the 60s and were split 2-2 between the NFL(NFC) and AFL(AFC).
- In case you didn’t notice, Illinois State swept Southern Illinois in basketball this season 
- Absurdly early prediction for Super Bowl XLIV: Giants vs. Chargers. Both teams get their best defensive players back, the Giants move on past Plaixco-gate, and San Diego just has too much talent not too reach the Super Bowl eventually.