The Worst Super Bowl Ever?

What a difference a year makes. Super Bowl LIII was opposite in nearly every way to its predecessor, which saw the Eagles and Patriots combine for an NFL single-game record 1,151 total yards in a 41-33 Philadelphia victory. This time around, the record set was for the lowest-scoring Super Bowl, and the Patriots came out on top, 13-3 over the Los Angeles Rams.

This was supposed to be another shootout. Both teams entered the game with top-five offenses in the second-highest scoring season in NFL history. The Rams averaged nearly 33 points per game in the regular season, yet somehow were held to just three in the only game that really matters.

Many expecting to see offenses methodically marching back and forth down the field were understandably disappointed. For casual watchers, it likely served as a reminder why there aren’t that big into football in the first place. A common phrase you heard after the game was “Worst Super Bowl Ever”.

But was that really the case? Now that we’ve taken some time to let the game sink in (alright, I was just too lazy to write this earlier), here are my thoughts about last Sunday’s Super Bowl.

First of all, just to get this out of the way, there have definitely been worse Super Bowls. I know that in this social media age, everyone seems to have shorter attention spans, which leads to this exaggerated clickbait-ification of everyday life, but this wasn’t even the worst Super Bowl in recent memory.

Just five years ago, the Seahawks beat the Broncos 43-8 in a game which opened with a safety and saw Seattle scored the opening 36 points before Denver’s only score at the end of the third quarter. That game was practically over before it began. I think we can all agree that a close game, even a low-scoring one, is more entertaining than a massive blowout.

But passing this Super Bowl off as a low-scoring game still wouldn’t quite be doing it justice. There are two types of low-scoring games: games where the offenses struggle out of their own ineptitude, and games where the opposing defenses execute a game plan perfectly. This contest was one of the latter.

This is something the average person watching probably wouldn’t be able to appreciate, but the Patriots played a nearly perfect game of defensive football. That’s the only way you so thoroughly shutdown an offense like the Rams. Of course, it was annoying at times to watch the Rams look helpless, but on every replay I couldn’t help but hand it to the Patriots for another great play.

Even despite scoring just 13 points, the Patriots offense had decent success as well, but was marred by miscues at crucial points – an interception on the first drive of the game, a missed field goal, and a failed fourth-down conversion. Really, the Rams were lucky they stayed in the game as long as they did. Well into the fourth quarter, it still looked like the Rams would be in good shape if they could even put together one touchdown drive. However, it never materialized.

Now, I’m not trying to say this was the most exhilarating Super Bowl I’ve ever seen – far from it. After Greg Zuerlein’s game-tying field goal late in the third quarter, it looked like a toss-up between “Legatron” and punter Johnny Hekker for MVP if the Rams were to go on to win the game. The offense was really that underwhelming.

But once again, the defense for New England stepped up big time, and when it mattered most, Tom Brady led a very Brady-esque drive to make sure those earlier mistakes didn’t come back to haunt the Pats. Sony Michel scored a goal line touchdown on the only red zone play of the game, and Jared Goff threw an interception on the next drive – what, to that point, had been the Rams’ best possession thus far.

I agree with the decision to give Julian Edelman MVP. He seemed to be the only weapon on either side that could do much of anything, and he roasted the Rams’ secondary to the tune of 10 receptions for 141 yards.

Ultimately, maybe it’s for the best that the Patriots won, considering the controversial circumstances that gave the Rams a shot at the Lombardi Trophy. For the Patriots, the never-ending dynasty continues, and while a younger me (particularly a two years ago me), would’ve lamented another Tom Brady win, I didn’t have much trouble accepting this one. It was a full team effort this year, and you can’t imagine Brady will be able to keep this up for much longer. It’s incredible he has to this point.

To hit on the rest of the festivities, I didn’t hate the halftime performance nearly as much as most people I saw. Sure, it wasn’t great by any means, but the NFL had well-documented troubles trying to find people to perform, and Adam Levine is a good enough frontman. When was the last “great” halftime performance, anyways?

I had similar thoughts about the commercials. They were decent. Started off slow, but got better in the second half. No one really stole the show, though. Not even Bud Light and their strange “no corn syrup” campaign that seemed to pop up a million times. It was disappointing to not have a great commercial to talk about after the fact, but I think Super Bowl commercials always leave us wanting more. Not enough people use the space to really be entertaining.

Well, that’s another year in the books. 2020 odds have already been released, and the Chiefs open as slight favorites at 6-1, ahead of the Rams, Saints, and Patriots at 8-1. You’d think at some point we’d learn not to underestimate New England. Maybe that’ll take a seventh ring.