Scott Ostler:
A coin flip, fans, friendly 49ers, and ... iguanas? What we learned at Super Bowl.
Some stuff we learned at the Super Bowl ...
The coin toss is a gala event unto itself. It’s so long and elaborate that it has its own halftime. The coin used for the flip is made from a rare metal mined on Uranus and blessed by the Dalai Lama and Pitbull. The crowd at midfield includes a representative from each of the 50 states and all four Teletubbies.
In the press box before the game, a hilarious photo was websurfed up by Chronicle 49ers beat reporter Eric Branch. It is a photo of the coin toss at the first Super Bowl. The photo shows one ref and two players from each team. That’s it. The scene is so lonely, it makes a photo of the first moon landing look like a photo of New Year’s Eve at Times Square.
Nobody anywhere has any idea what pass interference is. This problem can be solved by the use of a simple coin toss every time a receiver and defender fight for a pass.
Quarterbacks can be fantastic role models. For all of us. Seriously.
Jimmy Garoppolo and Patrick Mahomes killed it all week long.
Garoppolo was gracious to a fault, and if he were better looking, he probably would be popular with women. Through about four hours of mandatory interviews during the week, Garoppolo faced five different questions, repeated over and over. His smile never faded, his eyes never rolled.
Jimmy G has several levels of smile, but they all project this emotion: A kid who just found a $20 bill on the sidewalk and is going to treat all his pals to ice cream.
Mahomes is legendary. Maybe you heard the story of how he and his girlfriend dined at a K.C. restaurant recently, and as he was leaving, Patrick stopped at the door and thanked everyone for letting him eat quietly. He said he loves Kansas City, and he and his girlfriend left without mentioning that they were picking up the tab for everyone in the restaurant.
Mahomes threw two interceptions Sunday. One went right into the hands of Tyreek Evans and out the other side. Pure drop. After the game, Mahomes took full blame for both picks.
The 49ers have character up the wazoo. Yes, we sportswriters and broadcasters secretly grade teams, and the 49ers get an Aplus. Pleasant to deal with, and such a variety of personalities. Richard Sherman brought the fire, Joe Staley and Nick Bosa brought the ice, Kendrick Bourne brought the dance, Dee Ford brought the quiet thoughtfulness, Raheem Mostert brought the touching life story, Kyle Shanahan brought the honest and friendly interaction, and so on.
Grace and an accommodating manner don’t necessarily make a team successful, but they make it a lot more fun to watch and to cover.
The halftime show seems to be trying too hard. I remember the good old simple days when it was just Michael Jackson moonwalking and groping for his car keys.
Sunday was the first clothingoptional halftime. The entertainers didn’t have a dressing room, they had a paint & peel room.
Shanahan often says his offense is not really revolutionary because “there’s no need to reinvent the wheel.”
Maybe not, but how about reinventing the fourthquarter spare tire?
States are hard to learn. President Trump saluted the victorious Kansas City Chiefs and all their fans in the great state of Kansas.
He should have given a shoutout to the 49ers’ fans, because imagine how devastated the folks were in the great state of Idaho.
Everybody in Miami plays drums. It’s very cool.
Congas, bongos, snares, plastic trash cans. I found myself tapping my toothbrush and comb on my motel room sink. Sounded pretty good. The person next door joined me, beating on the wall.
Those 49ers fans are great, but sometimes sensitive. Walking into the game I saw a dad in a Garoppolo jersey chuck a nice spiral to his 5yearold, who dropped it. They didn’t smile or chuckle when I called out, “Hey, Kittle, you gotta make that catch.”
People in Middle America get a lot of credit for being true Americans and down to earth.
More than once, I read where Chiefs fans are the “salt of the earth.”
Does that mean the 49ers fans are the pepper of the earth? The MSG?
Chiefs fans are great, but their tomahawkchop thing is simply creepy.
And the way they end the national anthem is cute — “and the land of THE CHIEFS!” — but if 49ers’ fans did something like that, they’d be called lefty West Coast elite Americahaters.
The whole White House visit for champions thing is still up in the air. Good luck making everyone happy on that, Chiefs.
Miami is not a foreign country, it’s a different planet.
Back yards are fenced in to keep out mosquitoes the size of bald eagles.
Here’s an actual billboard I saw: “Got iguanas?” It was an ad for an iguanacontrol company.
And I thought squirrels in the crawl space were annoying.