56 thoughts on “The Big Game Sunday

  1. I think Kyle Shanahan is hands down the best coach in the league but my gut says KC wins it. Going on the road and finding ways to beat the Bills and the Ravens makes me think they will do something similar here. We’ve seen what happens when Purdy and the 49ers offense struggle and it’s that they lose, whereas even when KC’s offense is unable to do much the defense can hold the opponent down.Report

    1. I’m guessing that we will have an early San Francisco implosion, KC will have a 10 point lead that they’ll be able to maintain for the rest of the game (with occasional breaks from a field goal or touchdown here or there that will be immediately matched).

      I am basing this on nothing more than one of the Madden simulation summaries I read.Report

      1. That’s sort of similar to what happened against the Ravens. Chiefs scored just enough, the Ravens’ offense never got going, and then turned the ball over on the two really big opportunities they had.Report

        1. And as with all trick plays like that, it darn near didn’t; the only good thing you can say about the forward-pass part of the play was that Purdy caught it.Report

    1. My wife and son thought the blond next to Taylor was Mahomes’ wife, but I thought not.

      I asked my daughter who was *not* watching the game if she knew who was in the booth with Taylor? She did: Blake Lively and Ice Spice… and Lana. So I won the bet, but am now a little concerned about my daughter.Report

    1. Interesting how this is the…fourth, I think? Anyway, multiple games this postseason have been decided by a missed kick (either a missed FG or a blocked PAT).

      Someone did point out that this Super Bowl was a victory for Special Teams, and I think you can just say that about the whole postseason this year.Report

  2. Okay. KC won. It was close AF. Pretty good game, I guess.

    I mean, what’s the definition of the best game? The highest scoring one? The one where you have no idea what’s going to happen next? That means that the best game of the year could happen in, like, week 4 between two teams that don’t make the playoffs.

    For a game that didn’t have the Broncos in it, this was a pretty good game. It had the bad guys take the lead early and the good guys came up from behind to win it in OT.

    And Lana Del Rey was there.Report

    1. A commentor on Twitter summed it up in a way I agree with: “three quarters of WTFootball and then two quarters of really good offense”. So a good game for people who tuned in late.Report

    2. Unless it is your team playing, in which case the most fun game to watch is a totally one-sided butt kicking by your guys, I think the best is one that is interesting and exciting right up to the end. This SB delivered that.Report

  3. Handful of funny commercials last night.

    My personal favorite was Matt Damon/Ben Affleck as they evolve into pure memes of themselves for Dunkin Donuts

    https://news.yahoo.com/j-lo-tom-brady-matt-205200825.html

    Most disappointing? The E*Trade babies… they just don’t seem to get that the whole thing that made the originals funny was the improv over the raw baby footage. The CGI staging with babies as props entirely misses the point, Shankopotomus.Report

      1. Myself, I put the change back when Mercedes did the commercial that included Willem Dafoe, Usher, Kate Upton, and the original Sympathy For the Devil. Suddenly, Super Bowl commercials could be art (well, the 90-second version; the 60-second one was kind of choppy). It didn’t have to be embarrassing to be in a Super Bowl commercial.

        I’ve always wondered what the Stones charged for the one-time license for that commercial :^)Report

  4. One thing that struck me was how there were not nearly as many sports-betting commercials as I’d expected.

    Like, I think we had more commercials for Temu than we did for betting — and the whole “Kick Of Destiny” thing seemed almost like it got cut for time, like after weeks of buildup the commercial itself was maybe ten seconds?Report

    1. I’d like to think they were developing a sense of propriety about this stuff, but I am sure that is not true. The open question is whether they’re going to be so aggressive as to push the pendulum back in the other direction on sports gambling. It’s one thing to say small time betting will no longer be criminal. Having casinos where such activity is allowed within the 4 walls for those who voluntarily enter is something I would expect to be mostly tolerated. But endlessly peppering all of civilization with the ability to blow money on idiotic bets on your smart phone like they have been? That could prompt a backlash.Report

    2. The NFL controls the broadcast rights, and I suspect leans heavily on the network regarding commercial content. And the last thing the NFL wants to be seen to be doing is encouraging sports betting on its premier annual game.Report

    3. That could be based on nothing more than the price of getting such a commercial. $7M per 30 second spot, the google tells me.

      Why do that when you can spend $50K for 30 seconds during Smackdown?

      I’ll keep my eye open during RAW tonight. I betcha* that there are just as many sports betting commercials as ever.

      *Gambling Problem? Call 1-877-8-HOPENY.Report

      1. This was my thought. Legalized gambling is a state-by-state thing. $7M for a 30-second national spot probably isn’t nearly as many eyeballs who can actually gamble per buck as buying more and much cheaper slots in regional/local games. Also too, I think the network is much stingier about slots reserved for the local affiliates during the Super Bowl.

        Anyone have any idea if the California teams’ regional games — California doesn’t have legal sports betting — are saturated with gambling ads to the same level as the Broncos’ games?Report

      2. No gambling ads tonight!

        I was surprised.

        Now that the The Big Game is behind us, I guess that we just don’t have anything to bet on until March Madness.

        Why buy an ad? Save a little money for a couple of weeks. Turn the machine back on in a week or two.Report

    4. The NFL has a one gambling spot per quarter policy. Preseason through the Super Bowl, doesn’t matter.

      It’s complete hypocrisy of course. No single sports league benefits more from gambling than the NFL, legal or otherwise. But they have a very long history of distancing themselves while embracing gambling at the same time.

      From Jimmy the Greek to Las Vegas hosting the Super Bowl, the common thread is pretending gambling isn’t one of the pillars the league was built upon.Report

      1. The Premier League’s relationship with gambling is interesting to me. Notably, Brentford’s star striker Ivan Toney was suspended from the league for 9 months for gambling. Apparently he was betting on himself to score goals–which ok? It’s not like he’s betting on his own team to lose, which as a striker he could certainly influence (this carries a lifetime ban). Anyway, while the league was busy suspending Toney, Brentford was cashing the checks from their kit and ad hoardings sponsor, Hollywoodbets.

        Also HOW ABOUT THEM CHIEFS????Report

        1. Without know one damn thing about soccer, is that a position that would allow him to take unlikely to score shots in hopes of sneaking one past the goalie?Report

        1. Yeah, because I remember a lot of gambling ads in every other game I’ve seen on TV, which is why it struck me as odd that there weren’t very many in the Super Bowl broadcast.Report

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