As a Patriot’s fan (please, hold your disgruntled sighs) I was pretty exhilarated to see them heading for their tenth appearance at Super Bowl LIII. Although I was ecstatic they won their sixth ring, it was only after spending four hours, to say the least, underwhelmed.
After both the American Football Conference (AFC) and National Football Conference (NFC) playoff games went into overtime, I think everyone was surprised by the immense lack of scoring plays come Super Bowl time. A whopping touchdown and two field goals later, one meme phrased it perfectly as “Can you imagine paying $3000 for a 12-minute Maroon 5 concert and a field goal”.
It’s disheartening when the best two teams in the league come head to head and one team wins with a complete blowout, read Super Bowl XLVIII when the Seahawks beat the Broncos 43-8. It’s much more interesting to watch a neck-and-neck game where the winner comes away victorious with a last-second field goal. But I don’t think this past Super Bowl’s “neck-and-neck” is quite what we had in mind. Sure, 3-3 until the fourth quarter is tied, if nothing else, but it’s also not very riveting to watch.
Nothing makes for better football than a little rivalry. As a Patriot’s fan, I’m fairly used to being the odd man out, so I’m well acquainted with the banter. But when even the few folks I did strike up some friendly repartee with, dies out to just a “Welp… good game, I guess” come the final score, it was a bit off-putting.
When Monday morning rolled around and after talking to classmates and teachers alike, I came to find I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. “Yeah, it was underwhelming. I actually started doing homework during the game,” Farris Billy, computer science major, said.
I’m not saying there wasn’t anything exciting that happened during the game; just very little. Julian Edelman, Patriots wide-receiver, was named MVP after making ten catches for a 141 yards. Johnny Hekker, Rams punter, made a record-breaking 65-yard punt, the longest in Super Bowl history for that matter. And Twitter was given a mountain of ammunition against Maroon 5’s Adam Levine’s Super Bowl halftime show. Everything from his tank top to the lack of actual usage his guitar saw during the performance was disparaged after the show. Good times for the Twitter world.
And to top it off, the memo that Super Bowl commercials are supposed to be funny got lost, somewhere around 2016.
All in all, I’d say if nothing else, both teams defense fought hard. The lowest scoring Super Bowl in history doesn’t just happen because the offense brought their A-game, the defensive plays have more to do with this than anything else.
