LEFTOVER SUPE
Final thoughts on Big Game
SUPER BOWL closeout sale. No offer too low! Everything must go! With or without Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce has fully revealed himself to be an attention-starved, self-entitled, crude slug. Still, plenty more product endorsements to come!
The funniest line throughout the CBS telecast was spoken by Jim Nantz as the first half ended:
“And stay tuned as Usher takes the stage and lights up Vegas! Can’t wait!”
Yep, Nantz has long been a huge Usher fan, all the way back to last month when Usher’s name first appeared in CBS’s Super Bowl promo copy.
For a league that leads with its public relations messages of social and racial inclusion, watching the all-black performance of the Black National Anthem was unsettling for its divisiveness. Seemed more an exercise in mindless pandering than beneficial messaging. But that’s what Roger Goodell’s NFL does to a transparently phony degree.
I don’t get it. How does such conspicuous racial exclusion aid racial inclusion?
At least, if it’s anyone’s substitute American anthem, why not include — rather than exclude — the American flag?
As for useful social messaging, the coin-flip inclusion of that kids’ high school team from fire-denuded Maui was thoughtful and well-played.
Not sure if Tony Romo decided beforehand to speak English as his second language, but he gave it a shot. “Rush lane integrity,” “rush lane discipline,” “spatial awareness” and the good ol’ “Tampa Two” were his game-long keys to the kingdom.
Reader Andy from N.J. was left heartbroken: “I won’t be able to hear Romo go on and on about outside leverage every other play for the next seven months!”
Well, Andy, there’s this new anti-anxiety pill on the market, “Edge Rusher,” for temporary treatment of Red Zone failure.
Despite the annual hype, the commercials were short on mostly creativity, cleverness and memorable connection to attach to the product, thus most were a colossal waste of money.
The best of the lot, however, may have been T-Mobile’s remake rendition of “Flashdance,” replete with a cameo by Jennifer Beal. That’s the true measure of an effective ad — instant recognition of the product and an eagerness to watch that commercial again.
The repeated shots of the Taylor Swift suite brought the repeated question: Who was that woman who appeared to be driven to look like Harpo Marx?
Not that we’re surprised but Kevin Harlan’s national
Westwood Radio call, heard here on WFAN, of the game-ending play was indecipherable as radio listeners’ “eyes” were blinded by his hysterical screaming that begged for a straitjacket.
But give “Hollerin’ Harlan” credit for his usual ability to make nothing out of something. To that end, he’s a sportscasting pioneer as so many have successfully followed.
With a dozen cutaways to Taylor Swift, CBS, predictably, was short on other meaningless crowd and coaches’ shots. Hey, she did what I’ve tried to do throughout my long and extinguished career!
Best question asked was from Nantz who wondered aloud why, early third quarter, the Chiefs didn’t challenge a conspicuously bad spot after a Kelce third-down catch that should have given the Chiefs a first down.
Nantz thought, as did many, that the timeout that followed was to view footage that preceded a challenge. But that wasn’t the case.
The worst pregame feature focused on the 1988 firing of CBS’s “NFL Today” regular Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder for alleged racist comments.
The piece starred Brent Musburger’s self-serving revisionist history of the episode for Snyder’s “regrettable” comments about enslaved blacks “bred” by plantation owners to be large and muscular workers, which extended to NFL rosters.
While Musburger pretended that he was not responsible for Snyder’s sacking, he did, in fact, join those who dropped Snyder like a hot hunk of coal.
For starters, Snyder, no matter how indelicately, spoke a historical truth. Heck, the late awards-winning author David Halberstam chronicled the same.
But lost in the early, kneejerk political correctness was that CBS hired Snyder because he was a street guy with strong, roughly stated opinions, then he was fired — and abandoned by Musburger & Co. — for being a street guy with strong, roughly stated opinions.
Until Sunday I had no idea that Post Malone’s head was covered with hideous tattoos and that he would sing through diamond-studded, silver-plated teeth. Ugh, what a sight.
The song he sang? “America The Beautiful.”