Super Bowl XLV: A Comedy of Errors

I'm pretty sure everyone here either watched the Super Bowl or has a good idea of what happened.  The Packers jumped out to a 21-3 lead thanks in large part to two Ben Roethlisberger interceptions, the Steelers then closed the gap to 21-17 before it all came down to a wild 4th quarter where the Packers were able to hold on for the 31-25 victory.  So I'm not going to add another recap to the overly large number that are already floating around in cyberspace. Instead I've decided to look at the large number of mistakes, both on and off the field, that plagued what is supposed to be the biggest game in sports. 

1)  These people get paid for this?

It started with Lea Michele (no surprise there as Fox tries to cross promote any way they can) of "Glee" doing a decent version of "America the Beautiful", but that was the highlight of the singing department.  The Black Eyed Peas had a visually stunning halftime show but their singing sounded muted and overwhelmed by everything else that was going on. And what's with Fergie trying to sound like Axel Rose?  But the real low-light of the night was when Christina Aguilera sang the national anthem.  My first thought when I saw her was, "Has she put on weight?"  Then she started singing and seemed off pitch, before capping it all off by messing up the words.  Instead of singing, "O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming," she re-sang a slightly altered earlier verse by singing, "What so proudly we watched at the twilight's last reaming,"  Oh, that naughty, naughty twilight.  "I can only hope that everyone could feel my love for this country and that the true spirit of its anthem still came through," she said after the performance.  I'm not so sure about feeling the love but I sure felt the Zoloft coming through.

Before the game, Jerry Jones said he wanted to break the old Super Bowl attendance record of 103,985 set in 1980.  But like everything he's touched this season, it's been a disaster.  He would have set the record if not for the fact that 1,250 ticket holders showed up to the game only to find out their seats weren't finished.  Two sections of temporary seating didn't get finished in time leaving the NFL scrambling to fix the situation.  Ultimately they were able to find seats for 850 of those ticket holders, filling seats that someone else could have had if not for this problem, but 400 were left to watch the game on TV.  The tickets cost $800 and the NFL has said they'll refund them $2,400 in an attempt to make up for the inconvenience.  No word yet if the NFL will refund them for the price of their airline tickets, car rental, hotel, overpriced food, time they took off work to go to the game, or the overinflated price they paid for the tickets when they bought them on the secondary market.

3)  Even Mother Nature has something against Jerry

Because of a freaky snow storm that hit the Dallas area, 4 of the 10 entrances to the stadium had to be closed. Combine that with the added security of the Super Bowl and the waiting time to get into the stadium jumped from an average of 15 minutes to 90 minutes.  And to think people thought the lines to ride the new Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios were bad.  "It was just so long," said Dallas resident Brian Shake.  "Problem was, you didn't know if you were in the right line or not.  Every where you looked, there were just fences and screen and you couldn't get in anywhere."  Much like the bathroom Roethlisberger was in with the college girl.

4)  Little Ben

Before the start of the game, Terry Bradshaw said if the Steelers have the ball with less than two minutes to play and the game on the line, Roethlisberger will drive them down the field for the win.  Turns out, the Steelers found themselves in exactly that position. Down by 6 with 1:59 to play, the Steers had the ball at their own 13 yard line.  Unfortunately for them, Ben couldn't even drive them to the other half of the field, let alone the whole way.  Not to mention he threw two costly interceptions in the first half that put them in this position to begin with.  "If I had played a little bit better, I feel like we would have had a better chance to win the game," said Roethlisberger. Really?  I suppose next you'll tell me that if I didn't put all my stock in Enron I'd still have a retirement fund, or after attending a Justin Bieber concert with my daughter I may have a strange desire to strangle a kitten. 

5)  Joe Buck

For the longest time, John Madden was my least favorite sports announcer, even if he did put out a great video game.  How many Thanksgivings did we really need to hear about his stupid turducken?  But he's gone now and Joe Buck has taken over the top spot.   He seems to get holier-then-thou at times, misses calls, shows favoritism towards some teams and players, and generally acts like he just doesn't care.  He even said a couple years ago that he'd rather watch "The Bachelorette" than sports shows and that he doesn't even like baseball anymore.  Of course, if Brooklyn Decker was the Bachelorette I'd be all in.