123 Million+ people watched the Super Bowl.
It doesn’t mean the NFL is a good product.
The greatest trick the NFL ever pulled was convincing us all it’s entertaining.
Thank God for Usher! Truthfully, I really only know one Usher song and despite my ignorance regarding his material, I loved the whole performance. I would even venture to say the halftime show was without a doubt the most entertaining part of the entire NFL season.
Having said that… the NFL is not an entertaining product.
Sure, 123M+ people tuned in to watch Taylor Swift, Usher, and some football players dance for four hours on Sunday night. (The wise amongst us opted to listen to the Nickelodeon call from Spongebob and Patrick Star rather than listen to Jessica Simpon’s ex and Masters apologist, Jim Nance.)
Regardless of the numbers, I can’t escape this feeling that the NFL is actually a bad product and humans love bad products. (See: 75M people voted for Trump, 81M voted for Biden in 2020 and they can’t wait to do it all over again.)
We have so many examples of good entertainment not finding enough of an audience to survive cancellation…
The Wire. Arrested Development. Freaks and Geeks. Firefly. The list is endless in fact.
And meanwhile so many more instances of bad entertainment somehow find a foothold.
Case in point, football.
We had two teams that were, according to most of the sports world, historic for one reason or another.
The 49ers were supposedly historic for all their ‘weapons’ like CMC, Deebo, Kittle, Bosa, Young and their unflappable QB Brock Purdy. The Chiefs ARE historic for their dominance and contribution to boring our eyes out as they try to show the Patriots what it really means to be dull.
It’s surprising to me to wake up to so many people talking about how entertaining this game was and how the league hit record numbers with viewership.
In truth, sloppy play was the order of the day and at one point I found myself thinking hard about what were the truly entertaining moments of these playoffs? Let’s take a quick look back.
First the Wild Card Round. I had high hopes. I was at the Cirque Sportsbook in Vegas for a bachelor party and while we had a great time hanging out on Fremont Street the actual football was quite depressing. Only one of these games (Rams/Lions) was entertaining for anyone other than the winning teams.
(I did however hit on the Kings +4 over the Bucks thanks to that Dame game winner, and got a big win out of my adopted Toronto Maple Leafs when they won over the Red Wings.)
Sorry back to the football.
The Texans win over Cleveland was fun for people in Houston but a back and forth high scoring first half quickly devolved into a depressing display of Cleveland being Cleveland and Joe Flacco gift-wrapping the win for the Texans.
Chiefs/Dolphins was played in freezing temps but, while that was a fun storyline initially, the actual game supported every Kurt Warner stance that all of these playoff games should be played indoors. It was a slog. A dull, boring, rip your eyes out, blink and you won’t mind missing it charade. (Oh if I had only known how much the Chiefs would bore us in the weeks to come!)
Packers/Cowboys was fun for a bit for everyone in the nation who mocks the idea of America’s Team being America’s team but even that game got out of hand and produced a bad product. So bad in fact one member of our bachelor party disappeared in the first half and we never saw him again for the rest of the weekend. (Sending thoughts and prayers, Johnny)
The league attempted to step in and prevent the Bills Steelers match from being a boring contest by moving the game from Sunday to Monday to avoid a severe winter storm. That only partially worked as the game was still a 31–17 snooze fest.
Don’t even get me started on the Eagles/ Bucs matchup. That should have been a play-in game with neither team being allowed to advance.
What a wild opening weekend for the most popular sport in the nation.
The Divisional Round was only slightly better.
The Ravens/Texans was close for a half but it was terrible football. Then the Ravens took over and the Texans never made it inside the Ravens 25yd line. I’m a Ravens fan and I fell asleep.
The Lions may have been the best part of the postseason simply because they were the newcomers after decades of irrelevance and watching their fans finally have their day at Ford Field was admittedly a beautiful site. But their game against the Bucs was never really in doubt.
The Packers stole defeat from the hands of victory as did the Bills but does that make it an entertaining product?
Both of the eventual Super Bowl teams survived in this round not so much because they did anything spectacular but because the Packers and the Bills blew it. Again, this is more painful than entertaining.
The Conference Championships weren’t much better. The Chiefs bored the world to death again with their mixture of methodical footballing and plenty of Ravens miscues to feast on. It again wasn’t entertaining as much as it was painful for everyone except Chiefs fans to watch.
The NFC Championship was really two different games. The first half was a Lions blowout that had Levi’s sleeping. The second half broke everyone’s heart who wasn’t a ‘9ers fan and not in some historic battle but basically just a choke job by the Lions and the ‘9ers getting lucky enough on several occasions to move on.
This may have been the most painful and least entertaining moment of the season because the team most people wanted to see in the Super Bowl (The Lions) and the player most people wanted to see in the Super Bowl (Lamar Jackson) both choked and as a result…
49ers/ Chiefs Part Deux. The rematch no one wanted so instead of the league reading the audience and doing the Super Bowl quick and dirty like an NFL Network replay the league does what it do and they stretch it out.
Longer commercial breaks. Longer halftime.
Did I mention it was 10–3 at the half?
Sure the league is probably happy today. Record audience. (Is this really that suprising? Obviously more people tuned in to this game that any other game. Was anyone thinking that the well maybe the ’58 Championship has a larger audience? Ya know back when there was one televsion per neighborhood in America)
You would think a game that featured a QB chasing history in the form of Mahomes + the most famous person on Earth’s boyfriend (a guy who answers the question of ‘Can a bro be a liberal?’) + the 9ers high octane offense would result in something truly compelling.
It was not.
10–3 at halftime.
10–6 not long after that.
Meanwhile the 9ers D was holding up against the Chiefs until an errant misstep by a 9er rookie on a punt return and the subsequent fumble recovery handed the KC offense their first TD of the game.
13–10 Chiefs.
The ‘9ers managed to put together a nice drive to retake the lead only to have kicker Jake Moody get his shit stuffed on the PAT.
16–13 49ers. (Not 17–13. This is mildly important)
This is the same Jake ‘He’s definitely going to be’ Moody who earlier in the game set the record for the longest field goal in Super Bowl history only to ironically have it surpassed by Chief’s kicker and unfortunate last name possessor Harrison Butker.
Now many will argue that it’s compelling to see how Mahomes and the Chiefs stuck in there and ground out a victory. And to those people I say, you enjoy bad entertainment.
This was not a Chiefs victory nearly as much as it was a ‘9ers choke job. And they know how to choke as well as anybody over the last 30 years. The ‘9ers fumbled away what looked to be an impressive opening drive. They handed the Chiefs the aforementioned TD on the punt fumble. They decided not to run the ball after the 2-minute warning and instead ran only 7 seconds off the clock. Held their collective breath during a Jake Moody kick.
19–16 Chiefs.
Somehow their defense held the Chiefs to a field goal.
19–19. (Can we get a camera on Jake Moody?)
‘9ers win the toss. Elected to receive. Marched right down the field again and on 3rd and 4 instead of running in what some would consider 4-down territory, Shanahan (poor poor Shanahan) decides to throw, Purdy gets pressured, lobs an incomplete and instead of forcing Mahomes to score a TD the Chiefs only trail by 3.
22–19. And thanks to the Buffalo Bills complaining(lol) the game doesn’t just end.
(Idea:Maybe Jake Moody can get a job playing Jake from State Farm in the ads next season?)
And just like that the stage is set for Mahomes to methodically march down the field and physically beat the 9ers. I say physically because at that moment everyone in the world knew that Mahomes had already won the mental battle.
Some will talk about how the Chiefs are like the Jordan Bulls of the 90s. That they can mentally defeat other teams. And maybe that’s true but let me express an opinion about this ‘skill’ if you want to call it that…
It’s boring. It’s not entertaining. It’s like watching the bully win. It’s not inspirational. The only good thing about the Chiefs winning is that when someone does beat them next season it will make that victory all the more sweet. (Please let it be Lamar or the Lions)
And I get that the Chiefs and their fans don’t care. If they were my team I’d be fine with winning that way as well. Entertainment be damned.
But for the rest of us, for the audience, this is boring and we just lap it up.
We love to lap up shitty content on this planet. Anything to avoid thinking about death I guess.
With that in mind…
