Super Bowl Leee was a fantastic championship game… if it were soccer.
Not because the punters made more news and excitement kicking the ball a combined 14 times, setting some obscure records in the process. But in the sense that it was an extremely low-scoring affair that resembled more of a soccer game that fútbol americano enthusiasts love to ridicule.
Seriously, when the game went into halftime with New England up 3-0, I was really hoping that that would be the final score, because it would be ironically hilarious to have a Super Bowl be decided by a 3-0 score. The “best” teams in the league duking it out, only for a single field goal to be not just the decider, but the only score of an entire 3-4 hour affair. It would roughly be the equivalent of a soccer match where the final score is 1-0.
And although it didn’t end up being 3-0, it was still an embarrassing exhibition that really was 10-3, before there were some more kicks, with the Pats getting an insurance field goal before the Rams booted their own; and it figures that both teams would have missed field goals, because Nantz and Romo made it very clear that throughout the entire season in the Georgia Dome Mercedes-Benz Arena, no Falcons or any opponent kicker had missed a field goal, 31/31 overall.
Although Leee will go down as one of the more forgettable and least exciting Super Bowls in history, there’s an ironic satisfaction I feel in that it was so bad. Sure, defense wins championships, but the word defense is pretty much a cussword to those that run all major sports, because offense is what draws attention, attention is what sells tickets, and tickets are what makes the green that pads the pockets of greedy assholes. And from a defensive standpoint, Leee is actually one of the greatest Super Bowls in history, as both teams’ defenses put on clinics at preventing opponents from moving the ball down field.
But that’s now really how the record books and memories are going to recall Leee moving forward; they’re going to declare it the lowest-scoring Super Bowl, and a whole litany of pejoratives that correlate with the disdain for low-scoring affairs. The funny thing is that as far as soccer matches goes, Leee was a pretty good soccer game to watch.
Ultimately, I couldn’t really give two shits more about the game. I have no quarrel with the fact that Tom Brady and Bill Belichick have won their sixth championship together, and although I doubt it’s going to happen, nothing would be more rockstar than if they would throw in the towel and retire while on top. I mean, it’s been 17 years since they defeated the Rams for their first championship, and after five more rings, they’re already long past the point of having something left to prove.
And although many football fans and personnel would be stoked to see Brady and Belichick go away from a competitive standpoint, I’d be stoked to see them retire as champions, because few actually get the opportunity to go out on top, and nothing is more baller than retiring as champions, especially ones that the collective majority of people who are in or follow football love to loathe.
But even if were a glorified soccer match, a win is still a win. The Patriots are the winners of Leee, and there’s really little else to argue against why Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time; especially now that he has a soccer championship to put on his mantle in additional to all previous Super Bowls.
