I’m not the biggest fan of sports. I enjoy watching a game here or there, but I’ve never been committed to one team or really cared who won a game. However, I did (along with others in the U.S.) watch the Super Bowl. Eagles vs. Patriots, a series of “trick plays” and the most yards ever thrown in an NFL game to date. I regurgitated all three of those facts from Kyle Johnson as they don’t mean anything to me. I did have a blast watching the game and wanted to share my thoughts on just what football has come to mean in the U.S.
First and foremost, the advertising during the Super Bowl is one of the main attractions. Companies pay millions of dollars for a simple fifteen seconds of airtime, trying to show off their funniest or best ideas for why people should buy their product. In my books, Tide was the winner this year, having David Harbour highjack other cliche advertisements and claim “It’s a Tide ad.” Most of the time, I find advertising to be stupid and unnecessary. Why would I let someone tell me what I need?
However, this is not the goal that I think Tide and other assorted companies were going for. I think they weren’t buying the space on the air, they were buying the space in your brain. When you go to buy laundry detergent, you’ll think “haha that funny Tide ad,” and then you’ll be more inclined to buy it. It’s laundry detergent: who cares? That’s how they get you. That’s where those millions really went to.
During the game itself, there were several plays reviewed because they were “scoring plays.” Those are the plays when you score. You know, when you put the football in the big rectangle? Anyway, there were moments when a player had caught the ball and fallen into the endzone, but it was unclear if they “had control” of the ball or not, a condition that must be fulfilled in order for the play to count.
I think that’s a freakin’ stupid rule. I don’t know who wrote down what defines “controlling a ball,” but if it’s in both of your hands and you’re holding it against your chest, I’d call that a controlled ball. The refs called most of these plays in a logical manner, but I still don’t see why there was any argument at all. The big football man caught the big football in his big hands. What else do you want him to do?
After the game was over, Alexander Lowry, a Philadelphia native, immediately turned on the police scanner from Philadelphia and watched several livestreams of the streets outside City Hall. There were more people celebrating the Super Bowl win out in the streets of Philadelphia than there are living in Orange City right now. People were climbing lampposts and screaming at the top of their lungs, “Fly Eagles, Fly!” At one point, the stream moved to City Hall itself, and a totally nude man was climbing up the side of the building. He was nearly 20 feet in the air. Absolute chaos. I don’t understand what makes people behave in such a manner. Winning the Super Bowl is hype, but can we all settle down for a moment?
There were fireworks going off in the middle of the city. That’s dangerous! When it comes to sports, I think moderation should be key. The mob mentality of Philadelphia could’ve gotten some people hurt, and frankly, a bunch of buff dudes throwing a pigskin into a grassy rectangle isn’t that big of a deal. Let’s not get too excited.
