Super Bowl Ironies

A few leftover notes from this year’s Super Bowl:

- How fitting is it that the two players most responsible for breaking Colts fans’ hearts in this year’s Super Bowl were rooted on by the very same fans in their collegiate careers?

Purdue alum Drew Brees was the MVP of the game, and Indiana alum Tracy Porter provided the straw that broke the camel’s back with his 70-yard interception return in the fourth quarter — courtesy of New Orleans native and Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, of course.

The symmetry and serendipity of it all is quite glorious. Especially when you consider the key play of the game when the Colts beat the Bears in Super Bowl XLI: an interception return for a touchdown by Chicago native and Illinois alum Kelvin Hayden.

- Most people probably walked away from the halftime show under the impression that The Who aren’t very good. But they didn’t see “the real” Who anyway. That was effectively ended when Keith Moon died in 1978. If there’s any doubt on Moon’s influence on the band and pop culture and general, just know that he is the basis for Animal from the Muppets. Yeah, he kicked that much ass.

And even though they still managed to go strong with a “substitute” drummer for a couple decades, the legitimacy of really getting The Who experience was wiped out when bassist John Entwhistle died in 2002. I know, the bassist is generally the least noted member of any band, but The Ox truly ruled.

But the reason that this whole thing qualifies as ironic is that The Who were qualified as the NFL’s safe choice to avoid any trouble with the FCC. Keep in mind that this is a band that was once banned from all Holiday Inns because of how damaged they left their hotel rooms, including one incident where the furniture was stapled to the ceiling. The first band to smash its instruments on stage, including literally blowing up the drum kit. A band that has lyrics like “Who the fuck are you?” and “We were the first band to vomit at the bar and find the distance to the stage too far.”

Yet to the uninitiated, they were just lame old men. Alas. I guess this is what they meant when they hoped to die before they got old.

- Finally, despite being contested between Indianapolis and New Orleans, this was the most-watched Super Bowl of all-time. And the most-watched television program of all-time. And that is the beauty of the NFL. If this were baseball or basketball, they’d be wetting themselves if two markets of that size were playing for the championship even if they were by far the best two teams in their respective sport. Hence the conspiracy theories surrounding the great Sacramento Kings teams that couldn’t make it past the Lakers. There are a lot of crappy things about how the NFL conducts its business, but they sure know how to capture our attention.