Sunday, February 1, 2009

Thoughts on the Superbowl (sport, random)

I see it all the time in horseracing. Some horses just have a lot of heart and after they get headed, fight back to win. Pittsburgh was exactly like that. The only way to beat that kind of horse? Come down the far outside and nip them at the line. Arizona scored the go ahead TD too early in this case.

This was probably the most entertaining Superbowl I have seen in a long long time. It wasn't just the back and forth scoring, the fact that the game was close (which most people equate to a game being good), or the big individual plays. I thought it was great because there were so many legitimate huge momentum swings. This was a market maker's dream game. There were so many points where one team looked like it was about to take all the momentum and create some distance but then were stopped cold.

Even though they had a lot of penalties and they gave up the game-winning drive and two game-winning plays (Holmes should have caught the first pass in the endzone too), the Arizona defense stepped up tonight and brought it. They played their hearts out, with the interception, the safety, and managed to stop the Steelers whenever it looked like they were about to get some separation.

The best hit of the night was the commercial where they punched the koala with the glasses.

I don't watch Chuck anymore because during that Monday 8pm slot nowadays there's House, Gossip Girl, and the CBS comedy lineup. However, Yvonne Strahovski is really hot.

I had Arizona +4 -125 in the first half, which looked like a lock until the 100 yard interception TD. I actually wanted Arizona +3.5, but the service I use only had the +4 line, so I ended up losing more juice than I wanted to. That's about the sickest loss you can have for a football bet.

Just as I was about to think that none of the bailout-seeking American car companies ponied up dough for a Superbowl spot, Ford had a commercial late in the second half. Horrible. Derek Jeter? Seriously? While every other car commercial was showing how stylish their cars looked or how well they performed, the only thing Ford did was pay Derek Jeter to say a few words? Ridiculous. That's taxpayer money at work in the hands of these executives.

Barack Obama is an amazing speaker.

Ben Roethlisberger should have been the MVP. He created so many plays out out of nothing, stood tall and escaped tackles (not just eluded), and kept delivering the ball right where it needed to be.

If you weren't convinced before, this game had to have done it for you. Instant replay is needed in the NFL, and the current coach's challenge system is fine. Two huge plays were challenged and overturned. While I think the last play was a clearcut fumble (Warner did not have control when his arm was moving foward), I would have liked them to have reviewed the play.

I was actually waiting for Pittsburgh to fail the third down conversion at their own 1 yard line, and take the intentional safety. This would have been a clear play, but Al Michaels was clearly oblivious to it as usual, and I'm pretty sure Tomlin would have done it.

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