Well my friends, the NFL season has come to an end. Yes it’s sad, but Roman poet Sextus Aurelius Propertius once stated that absence makes the heart grow fonder. The offseason and being subjected to watching the NBA only grows your love for the NFL. The other night was a fun Super Bowl and one of the best in recent years. It was, however, ruined by a horrific defensive holding call and ended with a limp armed Hail Mary from Jalen Hurts. Even outside of the game, lots occurred and after decompressing from the other evening, I’m here to break down everything from Super Bowl LVII.
Tails Never Fails And I’m A Gambling Wizard
Before I really delve into the actual game and addition pageantry, I’d be remised to not bring up that I had a solid gambling night. I went 5-2 with three of my player props hitting and my two novelty props hitting. It all started with the coin toss when it landed on tails. TAILS NEVER FAILS. Cha-Ching. My additional novelty prop was Combine Jersey Numbers Of All Touchdown Scorers Over 160.5. That cashed by a country mile as Travis Kelce (87), Nick Bolton (32), Skyy Moore (24), Kadarius Toney (19), Jalen Hurts (1) scored three times, and A.J. Brown (11) all scored.
For my in-game picks, I hit two anytime touchdowns with Travis Kelce Any Time Touchdown and Jalen Hurts Any Time Touchdown. Those were free money. The other player prop that hit was A.J. Brown Over 71.5 Receiving Yards. The two that didn’t hit were Patrick Mahomes Over 38.5 Pass Attempts and Haason Reddick Over 0.25 Sacks. Kansas City ran the ball far more than I anticipated and Haason Reddick got put in a body bag by Andrew Wylie. Reddick dominated the entire season, but on the biggest stage he made 1 tackle.
The First Half Had America On The Edge Of Their Seats
In year’s past, we’ve seen Super Bowls that have started slow or even started very one sided. That wasn’t the case the other night. Right from the first drive we saw Philly march down the field and watched Kenneth Gainwell dive for a touchdown. If you bet on Gainwell at +2000 to be the first touchdown scorer, you were elated… That was until they reviewed it and he came up an inch short. Philly lined up the next play and Hurts ran a QB sneak for his first of three rushing touchdowns. Kansas City got the ball and six plays later, Travis Kelce ran a double move on safety Marcus Epps who slipped (we’ll get to that) and scored an 18 yard touchdown.
As the second quarter rolled around, Philly kept their foot on the gas. Just eight seconds into the second quarter, Jalen Hurts found his trusted target A.J. Brown on a 45-yard deep ball to take the lead. That’s what Brown has been great for this season: deep balls and run after catch. Philly got the ball back and had a real shot at stepping on the Chiefs throat, but a Jalen Hurts fumble turned into a 36-yard touchdown for Chiefs second year linebacker Nick Bolton. The Eagles got the ball back and Hurts orchestrated a methodical twelve play drive that ended with him running into the end zone from 4 yards out. After getting another stop, Eagles kicker Jake Elliot banged home a 35 yard field goal to end the half.
An Offensive Explosion Occurred In The Second Half
While the first half packed lots of fun, the second half didn’t disappoint. Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy was able to make adjustments to free up Kansas City pass catcher, the most notable coming around midway through the fourth quarter. Skyy Moore lined up off the line of scrimmage, but out wide. Mahomes motioned him in and on the snap of the ball with Moore still coming to the center of the formation in motion, he turned back out quick running an arrow route to the wide open flat. It was an absolute genius play call because his motion is telling the defensive backs that he’s going to cross the formation on the snap, but his quick back track release opens up 10+ yards of space.
That wasn’t the first time Bieniemy pulled that play out of his hat though. Only three minutes prior with 12 minutes left in the game, the Chiefs had the ball on the five yard line. Wide receiver Kadarius Toney lined up on the right side of the formation off the ball out wide. Before the snap, Mahomes motions him to the center of the formation. He moves in behind Kelce before the snap and on the snap, he reverts course running the arrow route to the flat. What makes this play so effective is that the pre-snap motion disrupts the coverage and because he’s moving to the slot, Darius Slay who was originally on him pushes the coverage assignment to the corner in the slot. It’s a money play that hit not once, but twice for Bieniemy and the Chiefs.
Three third quarter touchdowns for the Chiefs, and a field goal and Octopus from the Eagles, led to the game to be knotted at 35 a piece. Then, it happened.
Philadelphia vs The Officials
What an all time botch job by the officials. The entire game, I felt like the officials did a solid job. We didn’t see many poor penalties or even missed calls, but with less than two minutes remaining on 3rd and 8, Chiefs wideout JuJu Smith-Schuster ran a whip route. He was guarded in man by All-Pro cornerback James Bradberry. When Smith-Schuster came out of his break, Bradberry grabbed the back of his jersey and then appeared to hook his body with both hands. There are multiple angles to watch the play, but it does appear to be a slight hold.
Here’s my biggest issue. In that moment on a stage that large, I don’t think you can make a call like that. It wasn’t a very clear cut penalty, but it was apparently enough to draw a flag. I’m in the camp where I don’t think it should have been a flag, but you can see a slight jersey tug and even James Bradberry said it was holding. It’s just such a tough call to be made in this moment. It would inevitably lead to Harrison Butker kicking the game winning field goal. It was a great win for the Chiefs, but the stigma of this penalty will always loom when Super Bowl LVII is brought up.
The Commercials
It’s old news, but the Super Bowl is known for showcasing the new commercials usually with A-list stars. Super Bowl LVII was no different. We saw many A listers in big brand commercials. Some were massive hits while others, in my opinion, were utter duds.
The Good
Breaking Popcorn: It’s clear that Brian Cranston and Aaron Paul sold out, but I enjoyed the Breaking Bad PopCorners commercial. I recently binged the series for the first time and loved it, so seeing them hand the bag to Tuco and hearing “TIGHT, TIGHT, TIGHT” was pretty comical. I pencil this one in as a win.
Ben Affleck Channels His Boston Roots: While I do find it odd that actors like Affleck and Damon still claim to be “Boston guys” because they’ve lived in Los Angeles for twenty years, I liked this commercial. Seeing people get excited to see Affleck in the drive thru was cool and I enjoyed the J-Lo cameo. This is a memorable commercial.
The Bad
Bald Travolta: John Travolta has always been a bizarre human, but him doing a Grease ditty for T-Mobile was the cherry on top of his weirdo sundae. It was even more bizarre that it was with Zach Braff and Donald Faison. I could be wrong, but I don’t think there’s any connection between Travolta and the two stars from Scrubs.
T-Mobile Goes 0-2: T-Mobile missed with Travolta singing, but missed even harder when Bradley Cooper and his mother had totally real and authentic banter. First off, Cooper looked sickly. He looked skinny fat and somewhat bloated. Just a concerning look for the actor. The only thing worse than his look though was the unbearably scripted talk between the two. It was so inauthentic and robotic that it felt like a car crash. You don’t want to watch, but you can’t look away.
WeatherTech Duped Me: I really thought that the WeatherTech commercial was a Trump 2024 commercial. They started it off talking about bringing jobs to America and I was sure that this was a Trump political add which would have been funny. Once I saw that it was WeatherTech I tuned out.
A Middle Of The Road Halftime Show
This year’s halftime show was divisive. Many people are hailing it as the best they’ve ever seen while others are calling it rubbish and think it’s the worst they’ve ever seen. For me, I think it’s middle of the road. It won’t go down as a legendary one like U2, Prince, or Bruno Mars, but on the contrary, it’s not in the realm of shit like The Black Eyed Peas or Adam Levine. I think that it’ll just get forgotten about. Years from now, it won’t be brought up in the top ten conversation and I think that’s fine. Rihanna put on a good show and when you consider that she was pregnant, it’s even more impressive. Nevertheless, I’m not a huge fan of halftime shows so this one, much like every other one, did nothing for me.
Now if you wanted me to call this the greatest halftime show ever, Rihanna would have brought Kanye West out. She did “All Of The Lights” and “Run This Town”, two songs with a heavy Kanye presence. I mean, “All Of The Lights” is Kanye’s song. Rihanna rocked her portion of it, but being a massive Kanye West fan, I would have loved to see him up there. As a reason minded individual though, I comprehend why he wasn’t there. You can’t run around saying “I see good things about Hitler,” and then get rewarded with the halftime show. Still a huge Ye fan, but I do get it.
America Lost As Jackson Mahomes Danced
This was the moment I truly dreaded the most. I think it’s what America dreaded. The entire season, it seemed like Patrick Mahomes’ big talking bride and Tik Tok swaying brother were dormant. Last season, they ran rampant. They were dumping water on Ravens fans, Jackson desecrated the Sean Taylor memorial, and they were purely insufferable. As this years playoffs started to role on and Kansas City picked up steam, Jackson and Brittany did the same. It all culminated in Jackson hitting Tik Tok dances as the confetti hit the turf.
Whenever I see Jackson Mahomes start dancing, I feel like Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler. I want to scream at him, “NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU!”
It was difficult to pick who to root for and I inevitably picked the Eagles because the scumbag behavior and drunken debauchery from Eagles fans can be funny. Seeing Jackson and Brittany scream, yell, and celebrate is miserable and never fun.
The City Of Brotherly Losers
While I do think that the Chiefs got bailed out by a terrible holding call, Philadelphia hasn’t faired very well the past 99 days. On November 5, the Philadelphia Union lost to Los Angeles FC on penalty kicks in the MLS Cup Finals. That game kicked off at 1:00PM west coast time and resulted in Los Angeles banging three penalty kicks for the win. That’s not a huge deal though. Philly fans had game six of the World Series that same night at 7:03 central time. Their squad the Fightin’ Phils were down 3-2, but in Castellanos they trust. That was until Yordan Álvarez blasted a three run homer over the wall in the bottom of the sixth inning. Álvarezs’ nuke made history. The Astros lost 4-1 and the Phillies lost the World Series, making Philadelphia the first U.S. city to lose two major league sports championships on the same day.
Then, 99 days later on February 12, the Eagles lost by three in the Super Bowl to Kansas City. Look, it’s impressive that Philly sports teams are getting to the championship stage, but they aren’t closing. It’s no longer the City of Brotherly Love. It’s the City of Brotherly Losers.
Extra Curricular’s
There was the game, the commercials, the halftime show, but there were also other extra curricular activities accompanying the Super Bowl.
Execute The Sodfather
Days and hours before the game, NFL Twitter was hyping up the preparation of the field for Super Bowl LVII. Joe Pompliano tweeted that the total cost of the field was $800,000 dollars and that the locally grown sod was installed two weeks prior to the game and was given sunshine daily.
Pompliano also tweeted about the Sodfather. The Sodfather is a 94 year old man, who appears to have lost his fastball, having prepped the field for 37 Super Bowls. After watching the game the other night, it might be time for the Sodfather to hang it up.
Marcus Epps slipped on the Chiefs’ first touchdown after getting a good jam on Travis Kelce. His slip left the All-Pro tight end wide open. We saw on multiple occasions Eagles pass rusher Haason Reddick slip when he was coming off the ball and even Eagles kicker Jake Elliot slip on a kickoff. It really looked like the two teams were playing football on an ice rink. Aside from the questionable call to end the game, Super Bowl LVII will be remembered by the poor field conditions.
Chad Henne Is A Legend
Chad Henne has been a backup the majority of his career. He showed some spurts of brilliance in Miami, but he was destined to be a backup. His biggest moment came when Henne had to come in in the playoffs against the Browns for an injured Mahomes. On 4th and 1 with just over a minute left, he rolled right and hit Tyreek Hill for a short out route to secure the win and advance Kansas City to the AFC Conference Championship. Henne played fifteen seasons in the NFL, earned 38 million dollars, and retired after winning his second career Super Bowl. When Super Bowl LVII concluded, he grabbed a Bud Light and announced that he was done. Just remember kids, HENNETHING IS POSSIBLE.
