This year’s Super Bowl ended up being a bit boring. Tampa Bay dominated the game on defense making Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady did what he had to in order to put points on the board and win the game.
I picked the game correctly, which brought my season record to 137-123. I decided to look back through the years and this is the fourth time I have won the Pick ‘Em (2011, 2012, 2016, 2020). My best record was in 2016 when I went 142-116. Here are my results since 2011 (some years I did not keep track of my record, sorry):
2011: 129-128 (1st)
2012: 141-122 (1st)
2013: 120-140 (6th)
2014: 134-129 (2nd)
2015: (5th)
2016: 142-116 (1st)
2017: (4th)
2018: (4th)
2019: (3rd)
2020: 137-123 (1st)
Tom Brady won his seventh Super Bowl ring, which is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. In this era with a salary cap and the league striving for parity, to see someone win at that level is impressive.
This win for Brady continues the debate about whether or not he is the G.O.A.T. First of all, there is only one G.O.A.T…
If you are going by the metric of championships won, then yes, he is the greatest. I do not try to do any of that dumb stuff where people argue over him or Michael Jordan (such a weird argument). Naturally the Brady haters out there will say he is a cheater or he is not that good.
My favorite argument is that he would not have been very good back in the 1970s against the Steelers defense. Cool! Guess what? Those Steelers teams of that era would get destroyed nowadays by the Jets and Jaguars. Hell, they might lose to Alabama. Can you imagine someone like Larry Brown trying to block Myles Garrett? Brown weighed 245 pounds during his playing days. A guy like Jack Lambert was of a similar size. I don’t care how tough they were…the players today are bigger, faster, stronger. They would destroy them.
My favorite part of the Super Bowl is always the halftime show. Not because I am a huge fan of the performers or anything, but because I love reading the outrage of people on Facebook. Also, I do enjoy the entire spectacle of it. So much work goes into the show and it lasts like twenty minutes and the performers are the ones who pay for it (or am I completely making that up?).
Naturally this year was no different. Older people complain that they never heard of The Weeknd. Why can’t they get someone good like Lynyrd Skynyrd??? Metal fans want Metallica or some other heavy metal band. People who think masks do not work thought The Weeknd was making a statement on masks. Other people were confused as to why the dancers had jockstraps on their faces. The truth was probably a bit weirder, but I am guessing his fans understood it and appreciated the continuation of this weird musical story.
The other thing I noticed this year was the lack of decent commercials. I did not think any of them were all that great, nor was there anything that caused any controversy. Disappointing. I guess the ad companies figured people would work themselves up enough about everything anyways.
I always love the people on social media who have to announce to the world that they are not watching the Super Bowl. It is always for attention and trust me, it never gets a reaction from me. I just scroll right past those people. Normally they like to announce it with something stupid like “oh, I guess there is a sports ball game today, hahaha, I won’t be watching.” The sportsball joke was funny like ten years ago, but now it is just stupid. Knock it off.
At least this year they could add a new reason not to watch: the pandemic. I saw so many people saying they would not watch because of how ridiculous it is to be playing sports during a pandemic. Maybe it is, but you know what? I enjoy watching, so fuck off.
And finally, this is not Super Bowl related, but it definitely drives me crazy…the whole debate over the Defensive Player of the Year. Aaron Donald of the Rams won DPOY. It was a pretty close vote (27-20) between AD and TJ Watt. Steelers fans celebrated the fact that Donald is from Pittsburgh and that both players are tremendously talented…just kidding, they freaked the fuck out.
I love the Steelers, but the fans drive me crazy. The number of people I have seen screaming that the Steelers get no respect and that is why AD won the award over Watt has been astronomical (at least six, haha). Yes, Watt had more sacks and tackles for loss than AD, but you have to take into consideration the positions they play. TJ Watt is an OLB, whereas Aaron Donald is a defensive tackle. AD was double and triple teamed more than any player this year (there are stats that show that). The fact that he had almost as many as sacks as an edge rusher is pretty crazy.
But honestly, these types of awards are meaningless in football. The game is 100% dependent on the entire team. Here is an example. The Rams offense had more first downs than the Steelers. Their average drive was ten seconds of game time longer. So AD would get more rest between drives, but that also means he may not have been out on the field as much as Watt.
Every position in football matters. A good QB will look average if they have bad receivers. A great running back will go nowhere with a terrible line. If the offense turns the ball over a bunch, then a defense will probably give up points because of bad field position (or just being on the field too much).
Okay, I am done ranting.
