The Big Game the Morning After (OT)

Turns out my assumptions were out of date. I watched the big game online in perfect quality at the broadcaster's website with no issues.

Pretty exciting game.

I have to say I wasn't overly impressed with either team, though. Kansas City lost the battle of the line on both sides of the ball, and I'm not sure the much-ballyhooed Patrick Mahomes made a very convincing MVP. For a lot of the game (although it was probably because the pocket kept getting very small very fast), I thought he performed a skillful impression of an inexperienced QB having an off day. Several times, as Joe Buck mentioned, he appeared to not even have a clear idea of what he was trying to do. The KC offense took on a faintly slapstick aura now and then—several times a player with the ball had an easy first down right in front of him and failed to simply keep running or keep running in the right direction. And you know that play KC kept calling where the QB hesitated, then handed the ball to the running back standing next to him, who then ran straight down the middle? Anthony Anderson's real-life mom from the T-Mobile commercial could have told you that wasn't going to work. I don't know what it's called, but I'll bet that play was old when Andy Reid coached his first game.

But the Chiefs came through in dramatic fashion when it mattered, storming back from a double-digit deficit in the final eight minutes, and that is what counts. Exciting to watch. It's very satisfying when a smaller-market team wins a big championship—it's a triumph of grit, gumption, and "everything coming together" over the big-market money that usually manages to dominate these contests. (Just as an aside, that's another remarkable thing about what is historically the best NFL team, the Green Bay Packers*, who lost this year in the NFC Championship Game—the semifinals, for those of you not from here. They're located in the smallest media market of any NFL, NBA or MLB team, yet they have so many more NFL championships (13) over the longest span of time—81 years—that no other team comes close.)

Through the looking-glass
I watch so little TV that my occasional visits tend to be startling...even a bit shocking. While I enjoyed the game, the viewing experience as a whole once again made me glad of my decision to cut TV culture out of my life. What a wretched mess it is artistically, morally, and stylistically. Full of stylized violence and empty eroticism, ominous music, bathos, fantasy, threat-posturing, posing, greed, and histrionics. (Should I tell you how I really feel?) How do people get inured to it? You get the feeling that if it could possibly be contrived to be any more mannered, frenetic, bombastic, slick, and shallow, it would be. Particularly poignant and regrettable to me were all the shiny expensive ads for wretched junk food and horrible junk drinks—the kind of stuff that is slowly killing a lot of us.

...But step slowly away from that soapbox, Bub (I said to myself).  :-)

Anyway, congratulations to Chiefs fans, and all Missourians. It must be fun to be in Missouri (yeah, Kansas too**) today!

Mike

*Or is my fan loyalty showing? Nah, I'm completely objective about the Packers!  ;-) 

**Again, for those of you not from this country or who know nothing about (American) football, the Kansas City Chiefs hail from Kansas City, Missouri.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Andre Moreau: "Most of Québec was watching that Superbowl game, as local boy, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, number 76 for the Chiefs, was playing. By the way, he's the first ever medical doctor to play at the Superbowl."

Jack: "Mike, I’m sorry the Packers didn’t make the big party. Had they won, you could have gotten to wear another ring even bigger than the one you wore in this photo."

Mike replies: That was a fun day! Good memory.

Lindsay Bach: "It probably comes as little surprise that, depending on the source, the average American watches between three to five hours of television per day. As a person who has largely shunned TV for nearly 50 years, on the rare occasions I do watch television I am always stunned at the incessant wash of crass culture and consumerism viewers willingly submit to. Twenty-five years ago when I taught high school English, I used to sometimes tell my students that I didn't watch TV, just for their reaction. I remember one kid said incredulously, 'you don't watch TV?—you must be really bored all the time.' I responded that I was really never bored (the truth) given all there was to do in the absence of TV."

Speed: "On my very occasional visits to televised sports I am amazed at the technology that is now applied for our benefit—especially the Skycam...Skycam is a computer-controlled, stabilized, cable-suspended camera system. The system is maneuvered through three dimensions in the open space over a playing area of a stadium or arena by computer-controlled cable-drive system. It is responsible for bringing video-game-like camera angles to television sports coverage. The camera package weighs less than 14 kilograms (31 lbs.) and can travel at 13 meters a second (29 mph). Invented by Garrett Brown (also the inventor of the Steadicam). Following kickoff returns up (down?) the field is a thing of sports and technological beauty."

Jon Porter: "I believe Missouri's team was named for the Kansas City Chief, Santa Fe's posh Chicago-Kansas City train. So it might be more appropriate for fans to dress as engineers and conductors instead of Indians. The Green Bay Packers took their name from original sponsor the Indian Packing Company, a meat-canning firm. So while the Packers name has sometimes been the butt of jokes, it's not as bad as an early cross-state rival, the Beloit Fairies."

Mike replies: Not too sure about the train connection. Where'd you hear that? The team was originally called the Dallas Texans, and the Chiefs website says the name was changed to "Chiefs" when it moved to Kansas City in 1963 "partly" in honor of H. Roe Bartle, the mayor of Kansas City, who was instrumental in convincing the Texans to move to Kansas City. Bartle's nickname, which he got in connection with his role in local Boy Scouts organizations, was "Chief." That's all the website says about the name as far as I can find.

Lamar Hunt, owner of the Texans/Chiefs, is acknowledged to be the founder of the American Football League. He was later instrumental in the merger of the two leagues, and he was the one who named the Super Bowl—getting the idea from the Super Ball, a popular toy in the 1960s.

Greg Heins adds: "Speaking of Lamar Hunt, there's a photo connection (of course!). He was one of three brothers who took their family oil billions and cornered the market in silver in late 1979, driving the price through the roof. Guess what? Lots of silver in film and paper (what photographers used at that time). The price of those went up substantially. The scheme ultimately failed, silver came back down, and the brothers finally declared bankruptcy, which as you can see didn't cramp their lives a bit. Although silver came down, film and paper did not; funny how that happens."

Comments

[John Krumm]

I was thinking perhaps they should change their name to the Kansas City, Missouri Chiefs. Then replace Chiefs with something else, so we don't get to see drunk white guys dressed in Native American regalia. That's my soapbox (I'm married to a a Native American woman and it physically pains her to see that).

The real big game is on tonight, in Iowa. : )

[Robert Roaldi]

Ain't that the truth. The essential drama of sport is all still there, but everything around it is a grotesque caricature. I used to be a football fan, more Canadian football than NFL, but couldn't stand the play by play anymore. I tried watching with the sound off and that worked for a while, but I haven't watched a football game in 35 years. During World Cup season I'll watch a few soccer games and it's a revelation to watch a sporting activity that has very few stoppages in play. People who don't soccer complain that not much happens, then I think of american football, scratch my head and say "What?"
But that's the beauty of sport, they appeal to people for different reasons. It's a big tent, as you say about photography, room for everyone.

[James Weekes]

Actually, the President of these United States tweeted congratulations to all the citizens of Kansas after the game. Later removed.

[Jeff]

Third footnote... or if one happens to be the current President of the US...
https://m.tribuneindia.com/news/trump-draws-scorn-and-laughter-on-social-media-as-he-mixes-up-his-us-geography-35341

[Christer]

You wrote "(yeah, Kansas too***)" .

We may be on the other side of the ocean, but we sure know what you mean and to whom you were so discretely referring.

Made me listen to Fats Domino's interpretation.

[David Lee]

I am not a fan of American Football, find it a little bit boring. Same with Basketball or Hockey. On the other hand, I find Curling during the winter olympics extremely entertaining. I follow Football, Formula One and Baseball, the king of sports. But I would never say no to a good old super bowl party!

[robert e]

Mike, while I haven't owned a TV in a long time, I do see ordinary TV commercials on a regular basis these days, and they did not prepare me for the level of decadence and idiocy seen in many of last night's super bowl ads. Maybe there's a grain of hope to be gleaned from the fact that most of them were produced especially for the occasion.

[Michael Matthews]

The Packers have the unmatched advantage of being owned by the fans. Not having a billionaire despot owner pushing his little multi-millionaire players around on the field must make a significant difference to the fans in the seats and in front of their sets.

That aside, NFL fans who live in or near the teams’ home cities often have the option of killing the TV audio and listening to game on radio. The Philadelphia Eagles and WIP radio have done well with that.

[Maggie Osterberg]

I've waited my entire life to see the KCMO Chiefs go to, let alone win, an NFL Championship, so, in that way that sports let you blow off some tribal instincts, I'm completely thrilled.

Mike, every time I try to tell folks that *my* Packers are the most successful team, they rebut me by saying the Steelers are. What's up with that?

[steven ralser]

I probably would have watched with my son - but he is now in college (UW Milwaukee). Having become a de facto Packers Fan I didn't have much incentive to watch anyway. Having grown up with rugby and Australian rules, I also don't like all the frequent stoppages. During the season I would just watch the highlight video on the Packers website - this usually showed all playing parts of the game.

[Geoff Wittig]

I stopped watching almost all television a few years ago, reasoning that approaching age 60 my days were growing too short to spend many of them passively watching nominal entertainment. This has led to a few brief crises of conscience.
I watched the first 10 minutes of the first episode of Breaking Bad. I then turned it off; it was so brilliantly sarcastic and brutally funny I figured if I watched another minute I'd be hooked into binge-watching the entire show, and that was several months of my life I'd never get back.

[Clayton]

Any drama missing from the game you can find in the German Masters final.

[Victor Bloomfield]

Your comments are right on! I got so disgusted with the commercials and the disappointing level of play in the first three quarters that I tuned out. Only to find that I had missed the 4th quarter, which is when all the good stuff happened.

[Rube]

Go Bears, Monsters of the Midway.

[Chuck Albertson]

I didn't get the Kansas reference until I read the rest of the news (I always check TOP first!). Jeez Louise...and to think that I gave the man credit for knowing who's buried in Grant's Tomb.

[Jim Arthur]

There is no doubt that television is a big noisy wasteland full of big shiny things but the TV itself is useful for the occasional event, Blu-ray movie, or for presenting slide shows of your favorite photos when friends and family stop by.

The media player in my old Panasonic plasma works great for slide shows as long as I only feed it low resolution (2K) JPG’s. It even allows for root folders of MP3’s for use as soundtracks. Classic rock played over old, restored family photos is always a crowd-pleaser. I never bothered to network the TV so I just plug a USB flash drive into the side and I'm up and running in seconds.

I took a few of my classic car photos and cropped them to a 16:9 aspect ratio to fill every inch of the screen and found that people were really impressed with the presentation and detail. I don’t typically think in a widescreen sorta way so I have trouble coming up with 16:9 content but the more typical 3:2 and 4:3 stuff still looks great.

[kirk tuck]

Was there a football game on TV yesterday? I watched documentaries on photographers Bill Cunningham and Peter Lindbergh and then turned the TV to the "off" mode and wandered into the next room to read a book.

The fun thing about TV is that you actually get to curate what you want to watch. And then, after, there's always time to read.

But sadly it was a fiction book and I know that genre is subtly frowned on here...

[wts]

The editing in many of the ads is atrocious. Too many cuts. Scenes so short that you can’t comprehend what’s being shown before cut to next scene. Like frenetic computer game-play. Guess ads not aimed at someone like me who likes to gaze at a good photo for a long time.

[Not THAT Ross Cameron]

I’m with you on all the inflated attempts at building up the drama. It just detracts from the spectacle and turns it into a caricature.

Once you step away for a while, the commercialism and consumerism being fed through the screen is almost sickening.

I enjoy watching some shows, but only on the broadcasters ‘catch-up’ site. One can afford to be really picky and not just settle for all the sickly ‘reality tv’ dross. Aldus Huxley was on to something.

[Dennis Ng]

Not on this except the technical side : https://hackaday.com/2020/01/31/the-internet-of-football/

My remote area has no tv signal and not missing it at all. And remote means (touch wood) faraway from the centre where the government once acted crazy. Hope the germ died down. They do in March 2003. Nature.

[Scott]

I haven't had cable for forever but there is some excellent content I watch sometimes using apps from HBO, Netflix, Amazon, PBS, and Kanopy (free with your public library card). None of these have any commercials.

One can watch on a TV, desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. They are all TVs really — just with different screens sizes. You can get the same content on all of them.

I wouldn't want to miss out on the quality productions just because of all of the bad out there.

[Steve B]

The only things I usually watch on TV are CNBC (having worked in IT in the brokerage industry for many many years, I love it) and the local news. People tell me about different TV series (you've got to watch Breaking Bad, or Game of Thrones) but the most I ever watch is the first episode. Just don't find it interesting enough. Reading is more enjoyable for me than TV shows. And the nice thing about reading books is, no commercials!!!! Fabulous. Oh, and I love reading the photography websites, especially this one.

[Tim McGowan]

Truth be told, if you only recorded from when the ball is snapped to the play whistled dead you’d have less then 15 minutes of action. And they drag it out for how long ?

[John Denniston]

I was at the gym during the game. There are three TV screens on the wall. Two were tuned to the Manitoba Woman's Curling Championships and the third was tuned to CBC news.

[Peter]

Mike - After your earlier post about missing the party, I was happy to read that you at least got to watch th game from home. I share your feelings about the commercials and the lack of sharp play for most of the game, but a fourth quarter comeback is fun in any game, let alone the biggest of the year. Sounds like you salvaged at least part of Super Sunday.

[Peter Croft]

Speak for yourself, Mike. Come to a country where TV is ad free on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) four channels, which has unbiased current affairs and commentary, extremely innovative programs and comedies, which has at least five radio stations with serious listening for we insomniacs, all digital, which has another Special Broadcasting Service organisation with four digital TV channels (ad supported) and several multi-language radio stations for immigrants.

All this is government funded (to the undisguised hostility of our conservative right wing government).

Come to a country where there is no gun violence, where you need have no fear of gun totin' hombres, where there is an excellent fully working, nearly free medical system, where my insulin costs me $5.60 for three months' supply and each other prescription is $5.60 per month, where we have elections that work without problems and there are several viable political parties to vote for if you don't like the big parties... I could go on and on.

And where it doesn't get cold (it gets a bit hot, 42.7C today) and where I'm only 3.5hrs from Bali. We have a few bushfires of course.

[Daniel]

Watched on the computer, don't have a TV and don't subscribe to any TV or movie services.
The commercials were terrible interruptions that ruined the flow of the game. Cut off most commentary and analysis with all the dead time while they were on.
Yellow Gloves on the players? As they would move around and wave arms it looked like Referees Penalty flags. Again, distracting.
For me, too many zoom in and out cutsie camera angles. Vertigo inducing stuff.
Game was OK and the QB for Kansas City did produce with his three TD's in a five minute span in the last quarter.
All those guys for the 100 top players over 100 years - and O.J. Simpson was not in attendance?

[Dan]

It's a bit of a conundrum today with TV and the video/music culture in general. There is possibly the best TV programming ever right now. So many better and sophisticated shows. I don't think we watch anything unless it is streamed or we can DVR it to skip the commercials. On the other hand having listened to Stephen King's 'The Outsider', trying to watch the HBO version from Richard Price shows the little manipulations TV programming does. One example is a nurse who works in a nursing home. She goes home to a nice townhouse. In the book she lives in a very modest home that reflects the income level these people actually have to live on.

Regarding the halftime show at the SB, a lot of people praised it. Not for the music quality, but for the extravagant show itself. Extravagant is what now serves for quality of music these days and the reviewers of this are just as bad as everyone else in this 'what seems to be bought' regard.

[Rick_D]

While I enjoyed the game, the viewing experience as a whole once again made me glad of my decision to cut TV culture out of my life. What a wretched mess it is artistically, morally, and stylistically. Full of stylized violence and empty eroticism, ominous music, bathos, fantasy, threat-posturing, posing, greed, and histrionics. (Should I tell you how I really feel?) How do people get inured to it?

Allow me to gently introduce you to the DVR, your portal to television sans ads. Or sideline hot-takes for that matter.

It's possible to watch an entire game in a little more than an hour by starting the DVR, wandering off for a couple hours, and then beginning the game. The fluff between plays is gone with a button press. NB This does not work for soccer.

Teevee won't necessarily improve one's life but some of the best, most-engaging series ever have been made over the last ten or so years. But like film, one also has to be into such things and not everybody is.

[TC]

I grew up in the States in the 70s and 80s, then left. On a trip back not too long ago, I was astounded how television there had changed:

News channels had replaced the occasional reasoned, somber report with an unending rush of music, special effects, speculation and opinion, shouting doom over every piece. It was as if the National Enquirer had taken over the entire industry.

Commercials were no longer for the usual commodities, nearly all of them predicting death and illness if you didn't tell your doctor to sell you their medicine.

Programs themselves, what little there was left after the above developments, are similarly full of people shouting at each other over the pettiest of things.

I don't know how a populace can be subjected to that for any extended period of time and not be fundamentally effected.

[Bruce McL]

The Chiefs offense is based on getting defensive players to take steps in the wrong direction, and then capitalizing on that. The classic Chiefs play is having Mahomes roll out to one side of the field, drawing the defense to him, and then flipping the ball to the other side where a receiver and a few blockers are waiting. Another classic play is Mahomes gets in trouble but the pass rushers leave a gap he can slip through and run. Most of the day the 49ers defense was very disciplined. They didn’t leave receivers on the off side uncovered. They didn’t leave any gaps in their pass rush, and it was ferocious. That is why Mahomes looked like he didn’t know what to do. The things he usually does just weren’t available to him.

The 49ers had the second best running offense in the NFL. They ran the ball very well in their previous playoff games, especially vs. the Packers. Ahead by 10 points at the end of the third quarter, they decided to emphasize the pass in their offense! This failed badly, giving the Chiefs a chance to come back. Credit to the Chiefs for making the most of the opportunity given to them.

I watched on the NFL app on my iPad with the sound muted. I kept the commercials off the screen by scrolling down while they were playing.

[B Grace]

Residents of Kansas City are well accustomed to the fumbled greetings of theater actors, musicians, some politicians, and your general special people who shout out "hello, Kansas!" when you're clearly standing in Missouri. I'm not sure what the big deal was about. It's actually an easy mistake to make. But is there more to it? Probably not.

First, we do all know there is a Kansas City located in Kansas as well as Missouri, separated by one of two rivers, it's just that nearly everything well known about Kansas City is located in Missouri, although the NASCAR speedway and the home of our MLS team Sporting KC are located on the Kansas side.

And, second, we're one metropolitan area so the Chiefs do in fact represent the Great State of Kansas in addition to the Great State of Missouri. The Civil War happened a long time ago.

Anyway, after having folks from both coasts confuse me for a resident of Kansas when I've lived in Missouri my whole life, it was pretty surprising to see thousands of Americans suddenly learn last week that Arrowhead Stadium is planted securely in Missouri, as was Municipal Stadium before it. There is hope for us all.

Besides, our current President isn't the first to make the mistake.