Super Sunday isn't super, anymore. For myself, watching the NFL's Super Bowl is more of an obligation than a choice. Football is still fun and exciting. The National Football League is dull and boring. It's too corporate. It's a business not a game. It's overhyped and oversold. To me, it underperforms based on over-the-top expectations.
The NFL doesn't interest me like many others. I watched last night's game with my older sister. She admitted the Super Bowl is the only football game she watches all year. She was much more excited and enthusiastic about the game than myself. Listening to her, she sounded like a hardcore football fan and I sounded like a non-football fan.
What was stranger was I missed most of the first half and it didn't bother me. I was asked by my youngest sister to go shopping for house supplies and medicine. I noticed we were delayed. I figured out at 5:30 that we wouldn't get back home until at least 6:00, probably 6:30.
I wasn't angry. I was worried, for my younger sister. a huge Patriots fan. I didn't care if I was late. I was more concerned about her feelings. She watches more football and sports in general than my older sister. However, they are both light years behind in terms of hours watching football.
Every game is the greatest ever even if it truly isn't. Every player is treated as the best ever with little or no historical context. Most of the Super Bowl championship games played throughout have been uncompetitive blowouts. Yesterday was only the 18th time in 49 Super Bowls that the winning margin was 7 points or less. If you turn that stat around, that's 31 bad championship games out of 49 played.
Major controversies are ignored by the NFL-specific and general sports media. Other sports are not given the same respect. The NFL is looked upon as the big bully in school that you don't upset. The biggest stories outside of the game were Seattle's Marshawn Lynch refusing to talk to the media and New England accused of cheating by using illegal footballs. The Patriots alleged cheating was covered by the media, although too much time was spent on the past and not enough on the effect on the upcoming game.
On the other hand, way too much time was spent talking about Lynch not talking to the media. There are 51 other players plus about a dozen coaches from the Seahawks team that are available. Why does the media need to talk to Lynch? It seems obvious he's uncomfortable. I don't know why but respect his privacy.
Sports reporters cared more about Lynch not talking than the NFL not talking about major issues affecting the league. Questions to NFL teams and officials were more passive than aggressive regarding domestic violence, player safety, perception of bias for certain teams, and poor officiating.
Finally, the time between games was too long. Before last night, the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks last played two weeks ago. That's 14 days from the conference championship games to the Super Bowl. In the break from those games, there were 12 days of no football.
One week or seven days between games is normal, two weeks or fourteen days takes the excitement away. Can we start the game already? Is it Sunday? Yes, bad news, there's a five-hour pregame show before the game, then there's a thirty-minute kickoff show before the actual kickoff.
Super Bowl, super annoying.
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