The Crystal Ball 2014 Season's End

Congratulations to the 2015 Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots. How did the champs celebrate? Well….

LeGarrette Blount and Brandon Bowden rolled through the victory parade sporting brand new Bitch Mode t-shirts, openly mocking Seahawk Marshawn Lynch. Teammate Julian Edelman, who totally was not concussed during the 4^th quarter of the game, they checked and everything, took the time to troll Richard Sherman with a sign mocking the cornerback. Owner Robert Kraft was still whining and complaining days later about how his team was wronged with Deflategate accusations, and demanding an apology, even though everyone knows no evidence will be found despite the fact that something fishy happened and there have been rumors of this team’s malfeasance for YEARS. And while Seahawk Bruce Irvin was thrown out of the game for fighting, and immediately apologized for his role and actions in the fracas, it turns out the first actual punch was thrown by Patriot Rob Gronkowski, who then bragged afterward about throwing haymakers in the scrum.

Meanwhile, after what had to be one of the most heartbreaking moments of his professional career, Richard Sherman pulled himself together, despite the emotional pain and physical pain from playing basically one armed, found Tom Brady on the field and offered his hand in congratulations.

Tell me again which team was repeatedly called classless before the Super Bowl?

Opening Kickoff

I said before game didn’t care who won, and I meant it. Pats could win and I’d be fine with it. Even if they won, there’s enough doubt sewn by their constant cheating, that everyone would question the veracity of their wins. They could win 20 Super Bowls now, and people would just wonder if they cheated. Pats fans can talk legacy all they want. The rest of us will be happy to follow anything they say with a, “yeah but” and watch their heads explode in rage. This is going to be fun.

The Way It Was

Patriots 28 – Seahawks 24

They did it; the Patriots finally won a 4th Super Bowl. Brady is now in elite company with the likes of Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana as the only quarterbacks to win 4, and Belichick is rubbing elbows with Chuck Noll, Vince Lombardi and Paul Brown. Well, except those other men never cheated to obtain victory. But we’re splitting hairs now, congratulations to the new world champions.

You could see Robert Kraft whispering to Roger Goodell during the trophy presentation – “Apology accepted, Captain Needa…..”

Ok, enough throwing shade on the new champions, even though it’s super fun. Let’s get to the game notes and see how this travesty of Karma came about.

The crowd was fairly pro Seattle I wonder why. Oh yeah, no one really likes New England. Ok, I’ll stop.

Flashback: Two Weeks before Kickoff

Interior: NFL headquarters

Meeting with NFL brass and NBC broadcast team

NFL Brass Talking Head #1 – “This is the most hated Super Bowl matchup, potentially ever. What can we do to make it better?”

NFL Brass Talking Head #2 – “I know! We could have John Harbaugh as an analyst!”

NFL Brass Talking Head #1 – “Brilliant! No one will hate that!”

Suddenly, things got a lot more detestable.

Ok, seriously. Here are some notes I took.

FIRST HALF

Brady tried a pump fake, but couldn’t hold onto a fully inflated ball.

Pats offense looked great in first half, but only mustered 14 points.

Seattle offense looked atrocious in first half, but managed 14 points.

Sense a pattern?

Pick on Brady at goal line just tremendous – Lane paid for his play though with broken arm/wrist. Awful looking injury too.

Chancellor did good job on Gronkowski in first half. Once K.J. Wright tried to cover Gronk, touchdown Patriots. Don’t do that again Seattle.

First half closing drive by Seahawks was tremendously awesome. Textbook way to move the ball in a limited amount of time. First real signs of life by the Seattle offense.

Chris Matthews is looking for a promotion from 4^th receiver, that’s’ for sure

Harbaugh at halftime said Seattle secondary having matchup issues. Was he watching the same game I was? Good gravy, what an idiot.

HALFTIME

Sound mix just crappy. Sounded like their playing a cd over stadium sound system and recording the ambient noise. Just awful

I wonder what happened to the lion after the game?

Lenny Kravitz made a career out of covering songs, what’s one more? And that’s all Cinna got, was one more.

Katy Perry great at quick changing outfits. Made us forget about that awful flame one. And the weird 49 one. And the strange star covered NBC “The More You Know” outfit.

Oh wait, they did bring out the NBC “The More You Know” star for her to fly around on. Funky.

Missy Elliot coming out of nowhere, to double bill for the older folks. Not sure what was up with her NASCAR themed outfit, but hey she looked good, and sounded better than Katy, which is something, since Katy is rocking it.

SECOND HALF

Chris Matthews may be Timmy Smith - a no name player stepping up at the exact right time to make a name for himself and just be the difference maker.

Matthews, should Seattle win, needs to be the MVP, no doubt.

Third and one call by Seahawks bad call. No misdirection and Pats defense was not fooled. Nothing wrong with a field goal, but you could have had more with a bit more creative play calling. 4 points are a big deal in a close game, and this one is not decided.

Comparison of Belichick and Brady against Graham/Brown and Starr/Lombardi left out an important factoid. Those other combos WON all of the championship games mentioned during the broadcast; Brady and Belichick only were IN the same amount. And if we count the amount of championship games played in total, Graham/Brown still blows Belichick/Brady out of the water.

Stop on third and one was awesome. The Seattle defense may be stepping up big time. I thought Blount was a difference maker?

Wow, pass interference on new England NOT called. What was more surprising is that Collinsworth had the guts to point it out.

Looks like it might be up to Seattle defense to do something with less than 7 minutes left.

Pats offense stepping up. Seattle defense is wearing down and Pats are capitalizing. Looks like a rope-a-dope move. Seems appropriate for this game.

Pats take lead! Shocking! Seattle defense collapsing under weight of game. But no way Edelman back from proper concussion test. No way.

Seattle driving well. See shades of Super bowl 42 and 43.

How sick you think Pats fans are right now?

Holy crap what a catch! Kearse had his David Tyree play! Pats fans puking, muttering, not again!

Seattle has their opportunity. Lynch almost gets there on 1^st down!

Oh no!

Crushing turnover, just absolutely crushing.

Wow, just stunning. And now things devolve into a fight. Sour ending for an exciting game.

How fast do you think the vindication for the Patriots will come down from NFL headquarters? I’m surprised it hasn’t been laid forth already.

Karma, you owe all of us.

The Steel Pit

So we had a few nice things happen in the ‘Burgh recently to members of the Steelers. While all of them were great and full of joy, they also all had with them a touch of finality and sadness.

In an overdue cap to his illustrious career, Jerome Bettis was elected this year to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. This is an awesome achievement, and puts the cap on his career and tenure with the Steelers. Good for Jerome, he has handled his eligibility with class, although I would have enjoyed watching Hines Ward cry at hearing the news, just for nostalgia sake. During the enshrinement ceremony in August, Steeler Nation will be represented well in those stands. The drive from Pittsburgh is only a couple hours, I bet that interstate will be jammed with Black and Gold!

And Pittsburgh also celebrated former defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau. The venerable coach, who just recently accepted a position with the Tennessee Titans, was feted by the city itself as a day in Pittsburgh was dedicated Dick LeBeau Day. Sometimes change is necessary for both parties, and I think this may have been one of those times. But I love that we all got a chance to say thank you to such a cool cat one more time.

And also possibly for the last time, Brett Keisel hosted his annual Shear da Beard party. Keisel has now been shaving off his enormous beard for 5 seasons, with all proceeds on the night going to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. This year the event was attended by many current and former Steelers, including Ben Roethlisberger, Cam Thomas, Antonio Brown, Aaron Smith, James Farrior, Casey Hampton, Coaches Mike Tomlin and Dick LeBeau and many more. With Keisel’s age, health and contract situation, it’s possible this might be the last time he hosts such an event as a player, and boy, was it worth it, especially for Children’s Hospital. Good show Keisel, good show.

Only In Faux NFL Reality…

Attention NBC, there is other things to see in Arizona other than the Grand Canyon. How come that’s the only thing shown coming back from almost every commercial break was ….the Grand Canyon? Goodness gravy you couldn’t find one restaurant with some local cuisine to showcase, even once?

Captain American and Star-Lord, partying up at the Super Bowl! And like a true super hero, Star-Lord did indeed show up in Boston to cheer up the kids. Wow, these two are just super awesome guys!

Well, as always the Puppy Bowl was a rousing success. And it did leave us with a good message. Ditch the football for a fetch ball. I think it’s something we should abide by more often.

Apparently the Super Bowl programs were so big and had so much fancy metallic features, they set off airport alarms. Yikes.

The Girl Scouts racked up a ridiculous amount of money selling cookies at the Super Bowl. I’m not surprised, those darned things are addictive! Boy I sure could go for a tasty Samoa right now. Yum!

Well, apparently Tom Brady Sr. felt the need to discuss the impact of Deflategate on his son and defend his little boy. Yeah, the impact seems to be, cheat, and while people will question you, you’ll still be a winner.

And Big Tom can say whatever he likes, I’m going by the words of 5 Time Super Bowl Champion Charles Haley, who says those 4 titles are all tainted by cheating. Yeah, they are. Tee hee.

But it will never be proved, at least during any time to make a difference. The league and its “investigators” have apparently found a scape goat, and are weaving the narrative toward case dismissed. Hmmm, a low level Patriots employee and an NFL official are being nabbed for this, as they paint the picture of two inept people working for a multi-billion dollar corporation managed without consent or instruction to commit a serious cheating scandal for what is rumored to be weeks, months, seasons, yet it was all just a wacky mistake and no one whose job it was to quality check their work managed to do said job for this long. Who, oh who, saw this coming? Oh yeah, it was me! Ugh, it really just exhausts me.

And speaking of cheating, the NFL is investigating the Falcons for cheating. Wait, what? If they were, they’re doing it all wrong. Cheating is supposed to help you win.

And I suppose we could thank/blame this all on D’Quell Jackson, whose interception started this second round of Patriot questioning. But we can’t, because he’s been arrested for assault. There really are no good guys left.

Speaking of arrested, so was Warren Sapp, for assault and soliciting prostitutes. And now, he’s fired from the NFL Network. I guess now we know who’s old, slow and done.

Peter King decided to make himself into a story and bizarrely started defending the potential Hall of Fame candidacy of Darren Sharper, who currently stands accused of multiple disturbing rape charges. The odd part, other than King’s ever increasing ego, is that no one was talking about this until King brought it up. I guess he hadn’t reminded anyone in a few days that HE gets to pick who goes into the Hall of Fame, and how much of a wonderful burden and a terrible honor such responsibility is for him. No wonder he folded so fast on the Ray Rice story and immediately swallowed the NFL’s bullshit story. He’s as tone deaf as Goodell.

Johnny Football checked himself into rehab since the Super Bowl, apparently to improve himself. Find me one person who is surprised by this. Just one.

This author succinctly cataloged all the bad things that have befallen Cleveland in the very recent past, including everything since two days before the season ended. It just goes to show you, no matter who owns the team, who runs it or who plays for it, they’re still the Browns!

Upon Further Review

For the life of me, I don’t think I’ll ever figure out Roger Goodell. He’s just so obtuse when it comes to the future of the NFL, mainly because he’s so laser focused on profits. His organization’s customer service is atrocious, his own personal handling of anything media related is an abject disaster, and his ability to keep his head buried in the sand, far past when everyone else has been yelling hey Roger time to come up for air is unparalleled. His best/worst moment of the Super Bowl week surely had to be when he bit back at Rachel Nichols who dared question his and the league’s transparency on investigating itself.

Never mind that Goodell just spent the first part of his state of the NFL speech patting himself on the back for learning to be humble. Also never mind that he patted himself and the league on the back for the declining rate of concussions, even though that number is obviously dropping because of under reporting. I mean seriously, you can’t tell me Ben Roethlisberger and Julian Edelman followed proper concussion protocols during the playoffs. No way had that happened.

Never mind those things. Right now, Goodell needs the media and a good spin on the game more than ever. Between the concussion crises, the retired players coming at the league, the seemingly constant parade of players being arrested from minor traffic offenses to serious felonies, the repeated domestic violence incidents and the league being so reticent to address it properly. The NFL fan base under the age of 30 is dwindling, and will continue to do so the more we see parents keep their kids away from the game. But Goodell just cannot or refuses to acknowledge these problems, and the future of the game and the league could be in for a shock.

Nothing could Goodell need more than to have the media on his side to help sway public opinion. But good ol’ Rog doesn’t see it this way, since he is emperor supreme. It’s sad, because the game is wonderful. But the current idiots in charge seem hell bent on destroying it for just a little bit more of the pie. I wonder what they’ll do when they realize they burnt the pie and it fell on the floor.

Commercial Break

Yup, like everyone else I had trouble leaving my seat during the Super Bowl. Not because the game was that riveting, although the 4^th quarter did live up to the hype. No, because I had to see the commercials!

Now if you missed some of them, here’s a great rundown of the winners and losers. But if I may, I’ll go through some of my faves on the night.

During pregame, I did dig the Subway commercial. I thought it kicked the night off on the right foot.

The Snickers commercial with Danny Trejo and Steve Buscemi was just excellent and had me guffawing into my veggie plate.

And I absolutely adored the Esurance commercial with Bryan Cranston reprising his role as Walter White. That may have been my favorite of the first half.

I also enjoyed the Doritos when pigs fly ad. And honestly, the absolute goofiness of the Loctite commercial had me howling.

A few that had me scratching my head included the Nissan commercial. So was this the drama/Oscar contender version of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, where Ricky’s dad sticks around and cares?

And while I enjoyed the commercial, did anyone else think Mindy Kaling was starring in a commercial for pistachios at first? That shocking green dress threw me off big time. I kept waiting for Stephen Cobert and his eagle to pop out at some point.

And that life size Pac-Man commercial was just terrible. Seriously, his reward for all that running was a Bud Light? What did he do that was so awful to deserve that? I’d rather get eaten by the ghosts.

But no doubt the worst commercial was the Nationwide dead children ad. I know Nationwide claimed they were just trying to get a conversation started about child safety, but come on. Is it a conversation that needs to happen? Yes, preventable deaths are always important. But no one asked Nationwide, an insurance company, to start said conversation, let alone start it during the Super Bowl, which is filled with fun, nonsense and dancing sharks! That almost got them nominated for idiot, but as you can see……

Idiot of the Week

Oh, there’s no way anyone, and I mean ANYONE, can win this award except Pete Carroll and Darrell Bevel.

That may have been the worst play call ever. 2^nd and 1 from the 1 yard line, and you THROW THE BALL rather than send in Marshawn Lynch, or at least try a bootleg with Wilson? Their defense was reeling; they were having increasing trouble stopping Lynch. Did you not see the 1^st down play? Your running game is your greatest asset and you try to get cute?

You had victory in front of you, and refused to reach out and take it. Sometimes, you can overthink these things.

Tapped Out

And that brings us to the end of this season, and unfortunately for me an end to this run of The Crystal Ball. I will not be returning next season with regular weekly installments of this fun little project. So this is the final installment of this column as a regular, in season feature.

A few things went into making this decision to bring this to an end. I’m about to embark on a new educational endeavor that promises to take up a great deal of my time, as well as some other life changes that will also hopefully happen soon. And while there is always time for things you enjoy, honestly this season I’ve enjoyed it less and less. I still love the sport of football. I love the pageantry, the controlled violence, the high speed chess match that is each play and each game. I love the mayhem and nonsense. I love the mixture of might and intelligence mixing to affect victory.

But I don’t love the reality show the NFL continues to become. League leadership is tone deaf and disingenuous at best, callous, dangerous and conniving at worst. Every team has players you wouldn’t root for in a foot race through a manure field, and increasingly even the fans are becoming openly hostile and childish. No one wants to address real problems; rather everyone seems to be focused squarely on their piece of the monetary pie. And words like integrity and honor are bandied around by people who seem to have no idea what they mean, or how to perform their duties with them. I know these are not new problems, but they feel more in the spotlight this season than ever before.

And in some ways it just feels like the right time. I’ve been doing this column in this format for 9 years now. Some things have changed, many have stayed the same, the writing has gotten better, and with much more brevity than when I started. I’ve thought more than a few times of scrapping everything and trying new formats, new directions, but each season came back to this one. I like it; it felt good and comfortable, and most of all fun.

But it feels like time for a change. This isn’t goodbye forever, though, merely a see you later. I started this endeavor because I do love the sport and I love talking about it and sharing thoughts and ideas and debating everything from strategy and game plans to uniform designs and stadium food selections. So when something strikes my fancy I’ll come back and share some thoughts from time to time. But nothing with the every week regularity I had with The Crystal Ball. Perhaps the lack of structure and specific posting times will allow me to try out a few of those other ideas I’ve had bouncing in my head for a while now. We’ll see.

So as we exit into the off season, for the last time here, I want to thank everyone who took a moment or more to stop by and hopefully enjoy this offering. It’s been my genuine pleasure and a heck of a lot of fun. Hopefully, we’ll have some more really soon.

So thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, and I promise I will see you soon.