Super Bowl LV: The game

The story of the first half was: Both teams had great defenses. The Patriots had no offense at all because the offensive line was remarkably weak. So nobody could score touchdowns, but the Seahawks could score field goals.

In the second half, the Patriots offense made some efforts to rally, without much effect.

Indeed, in the game as a whole, Patriots quarterback Drake Maye was sacked SIX times. [If the Seahawks had been able to sack him one more time they would have tied the Super Bowl record.]

Of course each sack has a penumbra. For every sack in a game, that is, there are plays in which the QB was about to be sacked but got off a hurried pass, inevitably incomplete, to avoid it. The dominance of the Seahawks' defensive line against the Pats offensive line could hardly have been more complete.

Congrats to the Pacific Northwest, which has its regional champion. My understanding is that the gamblers' spread was 4.5 points. If you gave up those points in order to take the Seahawks side ... you were wise. The final score was 29 to 13. You could have given up 15.5 and still pocketed your winnings.

The game's "most valuable player" was running back Kenneth Walker, who rushed for 135 yards. This is the most rushing yards in a Super Bowl in this millennium.

It is the cap of a great season for Walker, who had more than 100 yards from scrimmage in five of Seattle's last six games. Sports Illustrated was inspired to write a post-season story projecting what his next contract is going to look like.

Spoiler alert: a horn of plenty.

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