Super Bowl LVII

By Preston Young, MBA

How about those commercials? I’ve heard mixed responses, some say they were better than previous years and some say they weren’t as good as previous years. While there were definitely some good ones, I think I fall in the camp of, overall, this year’s commercials were not as good as years past. One thing we can all agree on, that Tubi commercial had everyone in a panic of ‘who the heck touched the remote!’, Rachel even had the audacity to blame the dog, as he was sound asleep on the floor! Some notable good ones were Ben Affleck with his heavy accent as a Dunkin Donuts employee, the new Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 trailer, and the Will Ferrell EV commercial, and that’s solely because I’m a big Will Ferrell fan.

Did Rihanna crush it? Maybe. While I do think the show was good, had very talented dancers and wasn’t so over the top like some years, I am just unsure she was actually singing. I liked that she performed some of her older songs and wasn’t too flashy or crazy with the dance moves. This was also her first live performance in 5 years, so I do have to give her some credit for the show she did perform, as I was engaged the whole time. But her voice was almost too good which leads me to believe she would just shout a word here and there. Also, did she announce her pregnancy?

More about singing, I thought Chris Stapleton killed the national anthem. I’m a big fan of Stapleton’s music and voice so there may be some bias here but I thought he deserved MVP of the game after that performance. 

Now about the game, how about it?! I can confidently say that was one of the better Superbowl’s I have seen in my lifetime. Two teams who wanted to win so badly, gave it their all and really put on a show. Jalen Hurts put on a clinic through the air and on the ground, while unfortunately coming up short. I am not a Kansas City fan, never have been, never will be so I was rooting for the Eagles, and I like a lot of their players. It was really a tail of two halves. In the first, the Eagles seemed to have the game in check, scoring a quick touchdown on the first drive, playing great defense, fumbling for an easy Chiefs touchdown, yet still ahead by 10 at halftime. 

But I’ve seen this too many times with great quarterbacks, down 10 points at halftime, getting the ball to start the half and totally changing the momentum of the game. The Eagles seemed to have no answer for the Chiefs in the second half, allowing Mahomes to gain yards with his legs (oh, he also has a high ankle sprain?), allowing Kelce to be wide open in the middle of the field and the Eagles only having the ball a total of 4 times in the second half. I’m not sure what the Chiefs saw at halftime but their game plan for the second half couldn’t have been much better.  

As fans we wish the game could have ended differently than it did. You never want an iffy holding call to be the reason the game ends, especially when the game itself was so dang good. But, as a referee who are just doing their jobs, if they see it, they call it and that is what happened. Surprisingly, the Eagles players after the game never blamed the referees for their loss, they made sure to emphasize that it’s a 60-minute game and one call isn’t the reason they lost. 

As long as the game is not overshadowed by one call, this Superbowl did not disappoint and should be up there as one of the best to ever be played.

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