This year’s super bowl was probably one of the most exciting ones in history, especially the last quarter. Here’s a rundown of my commentary:
Commercials were below average. Sign of recession and lack of interest. Not sure why there were so many commercials about “sales leads” but I guess someone had to buy the 30 second slots.
As for Eli Manning, he was asked by one of the commentators something to the extent “at what point in the season did he think he could win it all?” Eli responded that he always had confidence he could do it, even when they were losing, the only difference was that everything else just worked out together in the end. That was surprising to me. He always seemed like a guy who was unsure, young, and green, but I guess he knew internally who he was and what he could do. Kudos to the Giants!
As for the Patriots, I was surprised with 39 seconds and 3 timeouts they didn’t try to go for a tie and win it in overtime. My guess is that Belichick had to deal more with his own ego and his pride than defeating the Giants.
It reminded me of the episode of TNG where Data challenged this alien to some futuristic video game. The alien was the master, the best, and there were instances where Data could have gone for the obvious win, but instead he changed his strategy and went for a draw. This exasperated his opponent to the point where the game lasted longer than he cared to play. In the end, Data won by forfeit because the alien’s ego was frustrated by Data’s “delay tactic.”
My guess is that Belichick wanted to win big. He wanted to show the world how great his team was and how great of a coach he was. So instead of going for the obvious and safe field goal, he went for the bomb and looked for a touchdown. He went all in. If he won, he would have won big, if he lost, he would lose on his terms… So in the end, it wasn’t the Giants that defeated Belichick, it was his own ego. Here’s a link to CJ Mahaney’s critique of Super Bowl XLII.
