Feb 01 2009
Super Bowl XLIII First Half, Second Half
 Exciting and tight game this year. First quarter the Steelers had the confidence and were moving the ball. Second quarter the Cardinals began to settle down and make their move. That fluke interception in the last seconds of the 2nd quarter (longest play in Super Bowl History) could have been a momentum changer. But with the Cardinals moving and the half there anyway it may not be. We shall see.
On a parental note the networks still don’t get the message that the Super Bowl is family time with young kids. We have noted 4-5 inappropriate commercials due to sexual (and immature) content. When can TV commercials stop being aimed at just the single, sexual immature males in society? Are they really the only ones still watching network TV?
Open Thread time – have at it in the comments section.
Update: Wow! What a great game! I thought the Cardinals had the Steelers, but it was a fight down to the last few seconds. The officiating was either really good or just horrible, which gave the Steelers enough of an edge to pull out a victory. I think the NFL needs to go back and look at some late hits and kicks by the Steelers and seriously fine some players.
But besides the occasional personal shortcoming, this was a great Super Bowl. Congrats to the Steelers, you had to earn a great victory. Congrats to the Cardinals, you could have won this up until the bitter end. I have seen many drubbings in Super Bowls, this was a battle of the best!
Excellent game, and for the most part excellent play on both sides.
How odd that you should think the officials should take another look at the Steelers. We were all saying the same thing today, only about the Cardinals. In fact, their play was so dirty with so many missed face mask penalties, we decided they have now taken the crown away from the Raiders as the dirtiest team in football. My son, who is a college coach, was going ballistic at all the missed calls that the Cardinals skated on. Or when the Steeler got the 15 yarder for throwing a punch on the sideline at the end of a play, when the replay showed the Cardinal player had him by the face mask and whipped his head around, so the Steeler reacted. If anything, there should have been offsetting penalties.
The officiating gave the Steelers an edge? The Harrison interception was a fluke? And the Steelers played dirty football? You should have turned off the Madden football game and watched the Super Bowl instead. You missed a pretty good contest! HERE WE GO, STEELERS, HERE WE GO!!
I’m still trying to figure out at least on “false start” call against the Steelers’ center. The replay showed some movement by the center, but his movement had stopped as the team finally set .. then the Cardinals jumped. It left you scratching your head as the announcers were mute as they went to commercial.
There was lots of holding, called and not called, by both teams.
Yes, the commercials were amazingly mediocre. Lots of useless violence, smashing of vending machines. The Bud Lite commercial with the guy being shot out of the office window was hopeless.
Up until the 4th quarter the scoreboard was a reflection of mistakes made and poor offensive execution in the red zone by both teams. Having said that, the last 10 minutes were incredible.
It’s been said that holding could be called every play by motivated refs in the NFL. In the first half, they did…against the Cards. In the 4th quarter, they did…against the Steelers. Like it or not, they want to see a good game just like we do. Case in point; while reviewing the 100 yd. interception return, Madden from the booth did believe that he made it to the endzone, but ultimately said, “You’ve got to give it to him just for the effort.” In doing so, he revealed what we all know to be true…no one is completely impartial in sports and something more than the rules govern the game.
Some officials give the benefit of the doubt to the underdog. Some honor the effort of the athlete in a close call. Others simply refuse to call superstars (like Michael Jordan) for traveling.
Only 3 commercials worth a chuckle…Monster.com (mounted moose), Cash for Gold (Ed McMahon/MC Hammer), and maybe Doritos (crystal ball). Cheetos and Pepsi should have openings in their marketing depts. today.
Budweiser remains the commercial champ. The horse playing fetch was great. But at 3 million a pop, you’d think viewers would have been treated to better fare.
Are you all right? Haven’t heard from you for a while. Here’s wishing you a speedy recovery.
I am wondering about that, too.
Are folks not seeing the new posts? We had a glitch on Monday but it is fixed. Try clearing out your web browser cache to see if that works.
Ok, I’ve turned off the wordpress caching plug in for awhile to see if folks can see us again. Obviously this is not happening to everyone, but the problems on Monday were related to the cache not working correctly.
LJ