HiYA:
Well, this has been a f-ing disaster so far hasn’t it?
To me it’s just been pure slop. The Chiefs 14-2 in the regular season, two convincing blowouts in the playoffs, choose today, the Super Bowl, to drop passes, and commit boneheaded penalties. You keep giving Tom Brady chances he’s going to burn you, every single time. And KC’s offensive line looks like the Jets O-line. Patrick Mahomes has been running for his life all night.
Loved the Paramount commercial with Beavis and Butthead, and the Tide Commercial with Jason Alexander.
Anyways....
Seeing the snow falling this afternoon reminded me of Super Bowl Sunday 7 years ago, the one they played here at the Meadowlands.
Super Bowl XLVIII (48) February 2, 2014. Seahawks vs Broncos.
I hate the snow, but man was I wishing for a blizzard that day.
The Super Bowl, as you all are aware I’m sure, is usually played in either a warm weather city, or a city with a domed stadium, like Detroit or Minneapolis. The idea to play a Super Bowl in the NY area, despite it not having either warm weather in February or a domed stadium, first came about after the 9/11 attacks. Problem was they had already selected the stadiums up till 2007, not to mention, Giants Stadium was considered by many to be outdated.
But still they had the idea in their heads, so when they built what is now Met-Life Stadium, it was decided to roll the dice and have the game played there in 2014.
Obviously I hoped that the two teams playing that day would be the Jets and the Giants. Of course the Jets, cooperative as always, went 4-12 and fired Rex Ryan. The Giants, weren’t much better finishing 6-10.
So we got Peyton Manning and the Broncos vs Russell Wilson and the Seahawks. At the time I was grateful that Tom Brady wasn’t going to be around. Instead the story line was Peyton trying to win a Super Bowl in his little brother’s house.
But I didn’t give a spit about any of that crap.
All I really wanted was for there to be the kind of weather we are having today; cold, wet, heavy snow.
Now again, normally I wouldn’t wish that for NY. I mean, I wouldn’t want the die-hard Jets and Giants fans sitting out there freezing, or for them to endure the traffic nightmares that would go along with it.
But let’s face it, those aren’t the fans that go to the Super Bowl.
Now it’s the 1%’ers, the corporate bigwigs, the Hollywood types, the big money people, they are the ones that get to go watch the Super Bowl live. The thought of THEM sitting on the frozen tundra of the Meadowlands, with snow falling, after sitting in the back of their limos for eight hours on the New Jersey Turnpike, that warmed the cockles of my heart.
I remember how all the swag bags had hand warmers and seat warmers and a flask of Blackberry Brandy (not positive about the last one) as if these people couldn’t afford gloves and ski pants. They were talking about all these contingency plans if there was a blizzard. Play the game Saturday night, or Monday night, (the one thing they never considered which would have made the most sense, was playing the game in the afternoon)
But alas the weather that day was almost perfect, not a flake of snow or a drop of rain, temps in the high 40’s, beautiful for February. And unless you were my old friend Brian King, or my cousin in law Jessica the Fish O’Shea, it was a crappy game. The Seahawks won 43-8. I mean talk about two numbers you hardly ever see in a football score. Coincidentally, I haven’t heard any talk of bringing the big game back to the swamps of New Jersey anytime soon.
And of course, the next day, when all of us NY’ers had to slog into work, we got 6 inches of snow.
sonofabeach
*********************************************************************************
One of the main reasons I didn’t want the Buccaneers to advance to the Super Bowl this year, besides the Brady factor, is that I didn’t want them to be the first team to play the Super Bowl in their own stadium. I don’t know why that would piss me off, but it did.
That is until someone on Twitter pointed out that in these Pandemic times, the Stanley Cup Finals (Edmonton), the NBA Finals (Disney World) and World Series (Arlington, TX) were all played at neutral sites, so it only stands to reason that the one pro championship that is usually decided at a neutral site be played at the home of one of the participants. If that was going to happen any year, may as well be this one. I can dig that.
For what it’s worth, although this is the first time a team will be playing on their home field, it’s not the first time a city will be hosting the hometown team. Super Bowl XIV between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Los Angeles Rams, was played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, just outside of LA. 5 years later, Super Bowl XIX, between the Miami Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers was played in Palo Alto CA, about 30 miles from San Francisco.
Keep it here for more useless knowledge.
*********************************************************************************
You may have decided to hold off on reading this till after the game so that you can watch the Pepsi (you’re welcome Ray McGarvey) Halftime Show Featuring The Weekend. That’s cool too.
I’m a Weekend fan, I have to admit (despite Phil Mushnick’s attempts to get me to say otherwise in his Sunday NY Post column). I had made a list of my top 25 songs of the 2010’s, and the Weekend’s “I Feel It Coming” was my number one song of the decade. I decided against posting my list when I realized that my main readership demographic is all over the age of 21, save for one or two readers (Thank you Colin McGarvey).
***********************************************************************************
Finally tonight after the game, CBS will debut it’s remake of The Equalizer, with Queen Latifah playing the title character. Not sure I’m going to tune in tonight, depends how pissed off I am after the game, but I will give it a shot. Though you all know where I stand on recycling TV shows.
Now some of you youngins might be saying, “Wait a sec there Wild Bill, The Equalizer wasn’t a TV show, it was a movie with Denzel Washington” And you’d be partially right.
But before Denzel took the role by the horns (and was excellent IMHO), it was a CBS Thursday night staple in the mid to late 80’s. And a fave of my dad and I.
The title character, former MI6 agent Robert McCall, was played by British actor Edward Woodward. His former boss, Control, was played by Robert Lansing. His right hand man, Mickey Kostmayer was played by Keith Szarabajka. And making occasional appearances as McCall’s whiny, somewhat spoiled, but also a victim of circumstance son Scott, was Cobra Kai’s very own Johnny Lawrence himself, William Zabka*. (I’m of the opinion that Scott from Austin Powers was loosely based on Scott McCall, but that’s for another blogpost.)
Anyway, I’m going to give this new edition of the Equalizer a chance. Sometimes these recycled shows work, I loved Hawaii-Five-0 and I enjoy the new MacGyver occasionally. On the other hand, this new Magnum PI is for the birds. It’s a decent show, but I can’t look at Jay Hernandez and say, “There’s Magnum”, the way I could look at Alex O’Laughlin and say “There’s Steve McGarrett.” And making Higgins a hot British lady, I mean, I’m sorry Higgins to me will always be John Hillerman.
I think Queen Latifah is awesome, but we’ll see if I can buy it.
OK, so tomorrow we’ll have a regular Weekly Mail, where we will preview Captain Orange’s 2nd annual impeachment trial, take a few shots at Majorie Taylor Greene, and rant on about Trevor Bauer, his obnoxious agent, and all those sportswriters who screwed the pooch on the reporting. All that and a lot less, coming up tomorrow.
Stay safe
and Enjoy the Rest of the Game
*I’m with Jeff Pearlman on this.. Billy Zabka is a great freakin actor. Incredibly underrated. Can do drama, comedy and action sometimes at the same time. How many other actors can pull that off?
We hated the Bucs in their own stadium thing too.
ReplyDelete