The big takeaway from Sunday night’s Super Bowl is that creep in your DMs might just be The Messiah. But then, that’s not really all that surprising, is it? Given what’s been done in his name lately?
As for the football, we learned what we already knew. For most teams, the offseason will once again be a study of getting “the guy” or whether the guy they have already is “the guy.” My hometown might devolve into civil war over the issue before the draft. But there’s only “one guy.” He wears No. 15 in red. And everyone else can be just good enough to lose to him. Oh, sure, maybe someone pulls a Stafford and wins when Mahomes somehow doesn’t, purely due to dumb, idiot luck or something. But it’ll just be an aberration.
When the Niners reconvene next July in Santa Clara, and especially when they appear on national TV once the 2024 season starts, most of the narratives that are lazily pushed out there will be whether Brock Purdy is good enough to win. Seeing as how he just went to OT in the Super Bowl, he probably is. But it’s like asking if Joey Bosa is a good enough edge to win a Super Bowl with or if George Kittle is a good enough tight end to win with. Sure they are, as long as you have all the other things. Purdy is the same, and will remain something the Niners maybe think about upgrading at different points, but also likely don’t. Just like every other position becomes a judgment balanced on the issues of skill, age, cost and alternatives.
The Niners have Dudes all over the field. And they lost to Mahomes because they missed one PAT and muffed one punt. That’s how little the door can be ajar and he’ll kick it down anyway. Everyone else is playing for the chance to lose to him, more often than not. Any team that thinks it’s solved their whole equation with just a QB is maxing out in the place pool at best.
We sat here in the middle of the season, while some wanted to produce a panic over the receivers who got the yips and an offense that didn’t look quite right and a young defense, but we all kind of figured they would use the length of the regular season to get it down and be back close to their top form when January rolled around. So it proved.
Because they have that guy, and no one else does or will. There are some (especially in the 606) who want to forecast Caleb Williams as being THE NEXT, mostly because he’s also small, shifty and strong-armed. But no one can know that. No one can project for those who walk with the Gods. Fans can hope, claim they know, but it just happens.
Every other team can just try to assemble everything perfectly, and then play an absolutely perfect game against them. If they want multiple Super Bowls, they have to do all that multiple times, which few if any ever do. Look at the Niners. Would be really hard to assemble a better roster. Would be hard to play a better defensive game than they did. It got them three points short and a silent flight back to SFO.
That’s life in Mahomes’s World.
And then there was the broadcast . . .
On a night when almost every ad was a very expensive 30-second time suck, the CBS studio crew was able to add just enough loud drivel to make the broadcast that already had Tony Romo infecting it with a gaseous cloud worse. Why would anyone think a football broadcast needs six guys talking over each other at all times? They rush in to get their non-point on air, or at least 80 percent of it, before the next guy has to interrupt to talk loud and say nothing.
The highlight had to be whatever stiff at halftime wanted to claim that Travis Kelce’s outburst showed that the Chiefs were frustrated as a whole. I think it might have been a grown man named Boomer, but it doesn’t matter really. Maybe it was the steakhead who bought a English soccer club to prove he knows Ryan Reynolds.
First off, that fumble that Kelce lost his rag after took place with 12 minutes left in the second quarter. Eighteen minutes into a game is probably a touch early for an entire team to act out, which, of course, Kansas City wasn’t. It was just an attention-starved tight end firmly aware of how many cameras were on him.
This is the kind of analysis six guys screaming give you. Must be a nice gig.
And then there was the other football . . .
To the other football for a hot second. Ivory Coast won the Africa Cup Of Nations yesterday, closing out one of the weirder tournament runs in history by hoisting the trophy after firing their manager after the group stage when they were sure they were done for. And then this:
