After seeing Super Bowl XLIX(Patriots/Seahawks), I never thought I would see a more devastating loss. After seeing Super Bowl XLVIII(Seahawks/Broncos), I never thought I would see a more boring Super Bowl. I'm sure there have been Super Bowls before I began watching football which were a disaster. However, Super Bowl LIII was the worst Super Bowl I've ever seen, and I've seen every Super Bowl since the 2004-2005 season(16 total).
First off, I don't want any Saints fans(or anyone else) chiming in with "The Rams shouldn't have been there in the first place" rhetoric. First of all, the Rams were arguably a better team than the Saints. They finished the season 13-3, had one of the most completed rosters in the NFL, and a genius for a Head Coach. Second of all, even if that Pass Interference was called, there was still no guarantee the Saints would have scored(and even if they would have, there was no guarantee they would have won for that matter). Third of all, if the Saints were so much better than the Rams, then wouldn't they have been winning decisively enough for a bad call to not matter in the first place? Fourth of all, even though the Saints would have probably done better offensively in the Super Bowl, would they have been as dominant on defense? Either way, this pointless speculation is just jealousy, and nonsense at this point.
Criteria: What am I evaluating the Super Bowl based on? Here are the following factors. I will rate each category on a scale of 1-10.
Excitement: How crazy was the game? How crazy were the fans? Were there jaw-dropping moments?
Suspense: How close was the game? Did it come down to the wire?
Big Plays: How many awesome plays were there? Did the game display any great athleticism?
The Teams(and winner): Are we going to see two teams which have never won a championship play? Or are we going to see the same old teams play again? Was the winner someone new?
Note: I don't take the Halftime Show into consideration, given it has been boring the past eight years, or so, but to be honest, that might have been the worst Halftime Show of all time as well.
Excitement(1/10): Needless to say, the lowest scoring Super Bowl of all time(16 total points) wasn't the least bit exciting.
The crowd was overwhelmed with Patriots fans. This isn't surprising, given they have a major bandwagon fan-base. On top of this, the Rams are still struggling to track fans in Los Angeles, and they had a lot of haters this year, due to that miss Pass Interference Call. It felt like a road game for the Rams, and this could have been the difference maker.
The game also had no truly "crazy" moments. No fluky catches. No flukey passes. No wild run plays. No fights. No drama. No...nothing. A whole lotta nothin'. Without a doubt, this was the least exciting Super Bowl I've ever seen in my life.
Suspense(7/10): This was literally the only positive aspect of this Super Bowl, but the crazy thing is, it still wasn't a suspenseful as the other eight Patriots' Super Bowls since the 2001-2002 season.
However, the game was up for grabs until the last five minutes of the fourth Quarter. Then, when the Patriots took a 13-3 lead, the game was pretty much over. The funny thing is, it wouldn't have mattered if the Rams would have made that Field Goal at the end of the game, because it still wouldn't have bought them enough time(assuming the Onside Kick would have been successful) to score points to tie the game. That is, to repeat, the Onside Kick-which is never successful-would have to have been successful. Since the 2001-2002 season, this was the only Patriots Super Bowl which hasn't been decided by one score.
Big Plays: (2/10): Unfortunately, there weren't any true big plays in this game.
Despite the fact the Rams have arguably the best Running Back in the NFL(Todd Gurley II), they barely used him at all for some reason. Even the other Running Back CJ Anderson barely ran. Tom Brady probably gave us his worst Super Bowl performance in his career, and we might have just watched Rob Gronkowski's final game, and that was a lackluster performance from him. There were some tackles on defense, two interceptions, once forced fumble(which amounted to nothing), and Julian Edelman made some big plays on offense for the Patriots. Oh, that's right-an NFL player suspended for steroid use earlier in the season was the Super Bowl MVP. Let that sink in for a moment.
For such a defensive game, we still didn't see any Fumble recoveries, Pick 6's, or any other big defensive moments. A snoozefest, indeed.
The Teams(and Winner): 3/10 The buildup to this game was practically nothing, and it's not hard to see why.
Aside from that controversial NFC Championship Game which I won't further mention, as I stated before, the Rams really don't have many fans. They probably have just as many haters from people in St. Louis, Los Angeles(yes, they're non-forgiving) and New Orleans as they do the Patriots. On top of this, it's not like they have some epic Super Bowl victory drought-It's only been 19 years since they won, and that wasn't unbearably long ago. Even the Quarterback matchup was odd-a 24 year old nobody named Jared Goff versus a future Hall of Famer 41 year old Tom Brady. It's not like it's a storybook ending.
Then, of course, the Patriots are in the midst of a 17 year dynasty, and their ninth Super Bowl appearance. It's tiring seeing the same teams win, and we just saw a team(which has been caught in two cheating scandals in the past two decades) win for the sixth time during this dynasty. We already dreaded all of the New York Yankees 100+ year dynasty in baseball. We're already dreading the Gold State Warriors dynasty in basketball to knock them another win. Nobody except their fans wants to see these dynasties win over, and over again.
Even if you're a Patriots fan, you have to admit that was a boring Super Bowl.
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