Super Bowl LIII is over.
And good riddance.
Pitchers and catchers will report at some point this month, and spring training will commence for those of us who favor America’s pastime over football.
After the NFL’s virtual silence on the blown pass interference call during the final minutes of regulation in the NFC Championship Game, I was all set to not watch the Super Bowl.
It wasn’t the call that led to that. It was the lack of acknowledgement of the call in the weeks following the game.
Roger Goodell had many opportunities to make a definitive comment on the situation, but he cowered, which is not surprising.
Thanks to our good friends Jason and Lee Whittington, we did come to our senses, and we did watch the big game. And we ate a lot of good food in the process.
Putting all of the bad blood aside, the package for the 2019 Super Bowl really fell flat for the NFL.
Some people watch the game to watch the game. Some watch for the commercials, and some watch for the halftime show.
If you’re the NFL, you want to please all of these demographics.
I don’t think a single one came away from this game satisfied.
The game itself was fine to me.
I appreciate a little defense, so low-scoring affairs really aren’t a sticking point, but when you combine the lack of offensive output for most of the game with a drab and forgettable slate of commercials and a halftime show that never really found any traction, the entire experience was underwhelming.
The biggest issue to me lies in the commercials.
Super Bowl commercials used to be funny. They used to be entertaining.
This year, most of the commercials were either laced with some agenda or they left you asking the person next to you, “what the heck did I just watch?”
While the millennial generation openly “rethinks comedy,” the companies they have been entrusted with promoting will continue to suffer as agenda takes precedence over branding.
They will continue to suffer at the hands of “marketing wizards” who spend most of their time trying to rid commercials of anything that might be offensive to anybody in the world.
The result is one sterile and void 30-second commercial spot after another.
These spots cost north of $5 million, even for the 30-second clips.
I’m not going to slam the halftime show too bad. It just wasn’t my thing, but I know a lot of people who do like those acts who came away a bit disappointed.
Had the game had more action, the commercials more creativity and the halftime show a little more juice, the whole thing might have been bearable.
Of course, I’m looking through the clouded lens of a Saints fan.
