Super Blog

OK, for lack of anything better to do in my Richmond apartment, I might as well blog the Super Bowl. All times are EST, 24-hour clock (subtract 1200 for the PM times).

Yes, I am ripping off Bill Simmons’s title. Since there’s no chance of my miserable effort being confused for his, I’m not going to worry about it.

2236: Some parting thoughts: Poor night overall for advertising, but a good final 40 minutes worth of football. Yes, kids, the Patriots are a dynasty, but the Carolina Panthers clearly belonged in the game. They certainly put up a much better showing in their first championship appearance than their cross-state brethren did in the Stanley Cup Finals two years ago. Tom Brady as MVP is a default choice — call this a team win, because nobody on the Patriots distinguished himself, except for maybe Mike Vrabel (by oddity rather than dominance).

2227: Vinatieri, dead-on from 41, redeems himself. 32-29 Patriots, Vinatieri is perfect again on the kickoff (into the end zone would have given them one shot), He Hate Me gets hated on at the 17 or so, and it’s all over. In our Alt-World, John Fox is plotting strategy for a 31-all overtime instead of calling Southwest Airlines for a “Gotta Get Away?” special and keeping Frank Beamer, calling to commiserate over the evil temptations of the two-point conversion, on hold.

2222: Sure, Brown pushed off, but if #21 (Cousin) had turned around, that’d still have been INT-Panthers.

2218: TD Panthers, Delhomme to Ricky Proehl, 29-all, and you know what? After the first 20 minutes, Delhomme has had a better game than Tom Brady. Our Alt-Score is 31-28 Panthers, and in that world, 61-year-old James Hendrix is known only to a chosen few as the Master of the Left-Handed Accordion.

2209: With all the idiotic penalties they’ve taken, it’s a miracle the Panthers are even in it.

2206: TD Pats, Brady to Mike Vrabel, a linebacker playing third(?)-string tight end, 29-22 after Kevin Faulk converts the 2 on a direct snap. Let’s keep a running score of what it would have been if the Panthers had kicked both XPs, just for fun. I’m going to presume that the Pats don’t go for two at 27-24, so our Alt-Score is 28-24 Patriots.

2151: HOLY CRAP! Delhomme 85-yard bomb to Muhammad (traveled at least 60 linear yards in the air), TD PANTHERS! 22-21 after another failed 2-point conversion, and ladies and gentlemen, the field for 2000 Sugar Bowl comparisons (29-28?) is now open.

2145: INT Reggie Howard of the Panthers in the end zone, runs it out, probably not the worst risk to take given how tough it’s been to get yards against the Pats.

2130: TD Panthers, DeShaun Foster, 21-16 after a failed 2-point try. Hold the bubbly for NE, but that failed 2 didn’t do the Panthers any good at all. MasterCard/Homer Simpson commercial was pretty decent too.

2123: TD Pats, 21-10, Antowain Smith rush TD. If the Panthers don’t score on this possession, they can start hanging the plastic in the New England locker room and moving the champagne in.

2119: I don’t know if it was a local or national ad (it was followed by 4 or 5 locals), but the Trunk Monkey has just taken the number two spot. If it was RIC-local and you didn’t see it, here’s the deal: guy sitting in Chevy Impala at accident scene, nutcase in truck sitting sideways in front of him is screaming at him with his window shut. Voice-over says something about creative insurance solutions as our guy locates and pushes a red button in his overhead console labeled “TRUNK MONKEY”; trunk opens, monkey pops out with crowbar, sneaks up behind screamer and hits him on the head with the crowbar. Our guy rolls down the window, high-fives the monkey, monkey stares at him for a couple seconds until he says “What? Good job, now get back in the trunk!”

2054: New England just got absolutely hosed — that should have been a catch plus fumble by Muhsin Muhammad.

2036: The NFL Network has just won the commercial contest with “Tomorrow,” featuring Jerry Jones and Bill Parcells plus a host of NFL players whose teams didn’t make it to the big game. It’s not even close — I just wish I had vid-capped it so I could identify all the players. Meanwhile, I suppose it was inevitable that somebody bigger would be doing this as well.

2030: Janet Jackson, 1993 is calling on line one, it wants you to come home.

2028: Please tell me I’m not the only person who has a problem with Kid Rock wearing a tattered U.S. flag, head hole torn through the center, as a… drape? half-robe? (And is this a double standard, given my stated desire to attend a U.S. soccer World Cup match in full war paint, wearing a fully-intact flag as a cape?)

2012: FG Kasay (Panthers), 14-10, after a 21-yd run by Davis, and the first half ends. I wouldn’t draw too much from him breaking free there; the defense was looking pass (obviously). And with that, we arrive at the point where it’s perfectly acceptable to leave the room: the halftime show.

2008: TD Pats, Brady to Givens, 14-7, on a drive where Brady just owned the Panthers’ 2-minute defense. Quite a change of pace in this last half-hour.

2000: Touchdown Panthers, Delhomme to Steve Smith, 7-7. Good to see the Panthers will put up a fight after all — I was afraid we were about to see a first-order beating.

1955: Just had my memory refreshed by the TSL Lounge, so I will give the Bud Light mutt dog (“Bud Light” vs. “fetch”) a spot in what is now the Top 4 of the first half. (But is it a good commercial if you don’t remember it?)

1945: That’s what I get for saying something about offensive incompetence: Brady to Branch, 7-0 Pats. Let’s see if the first-TD commercials measure up. (1947: nope. Snow beach volleyball isn’t terrible, but I had hoped they scheduled a good one for the first touch.)

1940: Vinatieri FG BLOCKED — this game could wind up 7-0 either way, on a special teams or defensive score. Commercials immediately after: a remake of Starsky and Hutch? If anybody can pull it off, it’s Snoop Dogg. The IBM Linux kid, on the other hand, has got to go.

1933: Even the beer commercials have been pretty poor. Overall, the best of a bad lot so far have been the Mitsubishi “Ballroom Dance” (Galant and Camry dodging stuff thrown at them), the Clydesdale donkey, and Pepsi’s bear-writing-a-check. The iTunes commercial didn’t impress me because the girl doing all the talking was a bit too cutesy about it — but it didn’t need to do anything for me, because I’ll be buying Pepsi for the duration of the iTunes promotion anyway (I’ve already scored my first free song).

1902: Bad movie commercials have dominated early. Car company globalization note-o-the-day: I drove past a Chevy Aveo on the way down I-95 pregame, except it was badged as a Suzuki Aerio, and it’s actually built by Daewoo. Why Chevrolet insists on pronouncing it uh-VAY-oh instead of the obvious EH-vee-oh I don’t understand — I thought it was dumb when VW assigned an unpronounceable name to the Touareg (TOUR-egg), for a vehicle targeted to a more upscale target market, and doing so is even dumber at a $10K pricepoint. Hyundai should be pronounced something like he-YOON-die, but they learned their lesson early.

1854: Looks like both teams are suffering from early nerves — no other way to explain Adam Vinatieri missing a 31-yard FG attempt. Of course, Carolina could just be planning to get their brains beat in all night — delay of game when your punter’s standing in the end zone? New England 41 total yards, Carolina 5 after that possession. Ouch.

1842: Couple of starter thoughts. First, singers who re-write the national anthem in 4/4 time to make their orchestration easier are not singing the national anthem anymore. Adding lots of little flips and stuff is bad enough, but changing the meter? Second, am I missing something, or isn’t the Dodge Magnum, advertised 10 minutes ago as a “cool” family car, a station wagon?!