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Some Thoughts on Super Bowl LII

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It was a fascinating nail-biter of a football game. I was hoping for a Patriots win, out of boring old predictable regional loyalty. But I can't be all that unhappy. The game was hard fought on both sides, and the Eagles eked it out the old-fashioned way, by winning the war in the trenches.

Until very near the end of the game neither quarterback had been sacked. I haven't looked into it, but I'm pretty sure that is rare, for football games generally or Super Bowl games in particular, for there only to be one sack and for that to come as the decisive end-of-game event.

When one refers in football terms to "the trenches" one refers to the front lines of offense and defense, where soldiers of each team stand literally shoulder to shoulder. In this game the offensive lines held up bravely against everything their opponents could throw at them, giving their QBs time to do their thing. Thus the significance of the absence of sacks, and of that one final exception, when the Phillies defensive line did finally get to Brady. 

But let's back up a bit. With only ten minutes left in the game, the Pats took the lead by one point, 33 to 32. 

The Eagles responded, scoring a go-ahead a TD with only 2:21 to play. They tried a two point conversion but it failed. So they were up by just 5 points. 

More than 2 minutes can be a long time in football. The Pats had one timeout remaining, they had the two minute warning coming up, and they had available the usual tricks for elongating the playing time. Brady was, one would have thought, perfectly capable of taking his team downfield for another TD and a Patriot win by 1. Or by 2 assuming a routine point after. 

So one would have thought. But then as they began that next drive THAT is when the Phillies defensive line finally broke through, sacking Brady, forcing a fumble and a turnover. From there, it was time management on the Phillies side and desperation on the Patriots' side til time ran out.

Oh, and as you might have heard, Justin Timberlake put on a halftime show. And there were lots of highly expensive advertisements. I'll say something about those aspects of the Super Bowl experience in a later post. Perhaps tomorrow.  

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