Super Bowl post-mortem

Where to begin?

• This was quite possibly the most nerve-wracking four hours of sports I've ever seen. This was even worse than that other playoff game back in October, because at least with that one I gave up hope when Pedro came back for the eighth inning--it was over, it was just a question of how it was going to happen. Last night, I didn't know what was going to happen.
  
• Of course, I made an aside to the host of the party last night when things started getting close: "Remember? That's the way it happened last time. The other team came back, and then [the Patriots] won it in the final seconds." I had no idea how accurate the analogy would be. Creepy.
  
• At one point near the end of the first quarter, the Panthers had a total of -2 yards of offense. Total. On more than one drive. You might almost argue that the tournament wasn't won late, it was lost early.
  
• On the other hand, one can also make the case that the referees in this game were as meddling as the Supreme Court in 2000. Others may feel that the calls were excessively tilted towards the Patriots, but after the Fauria touchdown was ruled out of bounds, our gang was fully expecting the referee to announce on a first-down play: "The receiver was in possession of the ball as he ran out of bounds past the first-down marker. Turnover on downs."
  
• After all the calls that weren't made, picking on Troy Brown for offensive pass interference on the final drive seems more than a bit tacky, doesn't it.
  
• People may not have tuned in for interviews following the game, so they may not know that the Patriots left the four seconds on the clock after the Vinatieri field goal by accident. It wasn't to give themselves a safety margin should something go wrong; Belichick admitted that they should have waited for a few extra seconds, and they just panicked a bit.
  
• One wonders how the game would have gone if Vinatieri had managed to stake the Patriots to a 6-0 lead earlier. Would he have lived up to his "Mr. Clutch" billing? Or would he not even have needed to pull off the same trick twice?
  
• One of the more memorable lines in The Sports Guy's coverage of the previous win went along the lines of: "Vinatieri gets free drinks until he's six feet under." Following this, does this mean even after he's under, Patriots fans should spill one "for their homey?"
  
• Somebody has compared the Patriots to offensive and defensive machines with interchangeable parts. After seeing the 1-yard touchdown pass to Mike Vrabel, all we need now to have seen everything is David Givens, Troy Brown, or one of the other Patriots wide receivers to return an interception for a touchdown.
  
• One-yard touchdown pass to Mike Vrabel? Are you kidding me?
  
• Who would have thought that the end-of-quarter scores would be 0-0, 14-10, 14-10, and 32-29? Or that it could have been 38-33?
  
• More frightening coincidences: twice the Super Bowl has been held in February; twice the Patriots have won it. All I have to say--let's have it in February 2005, too.
  
• "Stupid voiceover." Easily the coolest commercial of the year. It's easily in the same league as the NFL's commercials featuring their smart-aleck announcer, or the ESPN SportsCenter commercial series. Most of the others were kind of "eh," with the possible exceptions of the Pepsi bikini wax commercial and the Visa Olympics commercial.
  
• Yep, there really was a one-yard touchdown pass to a linebacker playing on the offense. Just checking to make sure I hadn't gone completely crazy.
  
• Pregame: the team introductions didn't have quite the same fire they did two years ago. There was something intangible about the way the Patriots entered last time--maybe it was the formation, with the players almost hopping out in drill-like formation; maybe it was the announcer made it known that the Patriots would march out as a team, after the Rams chose to introduce its "Greatest Show on Turf."
  
• Another random thought occurred to me during the weekend, before the game. What I figured was if that the Panthers tried to introduce individual players, they'd get clobbered by the Patriots. They didn't, and it turned out to be a very close game--too close.
  
• Halftime show: missed it. Not a loss, from what I've heard and read. Although it's interesting that the FCC can be outraged by a flash of bosom, but not the scams being proposed by Fox and CBS.
  
• Postgame: Very cool. Except for two things. The Boston fans did get a little too rowdy (fire-hopping outside a downtown Uno's and a rather disastrous SUV accident). And . . . .
  
• Tedy Bruschi: he was seemingly omnipresent post-game (had he been a Panther, he would have been ubiquitous, but that's another story). He had a rather unnerving moment with the Lombardi trophy (see the last photo). He somehow managed to pop into about half a dozen other player interviews across the local networks, and most frighteningly, congratulated Vinatieri with what me and my friends could only describe as a "love tackle." It definitely weirded us out.
  
• When the aforementioned last picture on the page linked above appeared, the caption originally read "Adam Vinatieri earned a second dance with the Lombardi." I (and probably many other irate Pats fans) apparently schooled the Page 2 editors, as the caption was promptly corrected.