Reflections on the Big Game

Hello everyone.

Another pro football season has come…and gone…and it is starting to seem like it was a really long time ago since your Tennessee Titans played in the Super Bowl (it was). Heck, it’s starting to be a long time since they were good enough to make the playoffs!

Anyway, before the memories from Super Bowl XLVIII fade, here are some of my thoughts about the ‘big game.’ I’d love to hear your feedback on these points…or I’d love it even more if you would be willing to share your own.

My thoughts:

• All the build-up to the Big Game featured one team. It was almost like the match-up was like the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Generals. I’m sure the Seahawks took note.
• I’m not sure why performers feel they need to slow down/drag out the National Anthem or “America the Beautiful.” Maybe they do it to extend their own airtime?
• Watching the “Big Game” is a lot more fun when you do it with a group of friends
• Speaking of friends, and “America the Beautiful,” everyone enjoyed my story about “America the Beautiful” and a young Paul Gary. We sang that hymn at church on or around July 4thone year and my seven-year-old companion decided to sing the song a la Ray Charles (“I’m taking about…America”).
• And speaking of friends and the big game, it’s even MORE fun to watch the game with friends when there are yummy treats involved!
• It is really hard, we learned, to find a way to watch the “Big Game” when you are working in France. Then, when Holly realized she’d have to pull an all-niter to watch the game – kickoff would’ve been just past 12:30 at her apartment – she decided to skip it altogether.
• You might wonder why I keep referring to the “Big Game.” I am always struck by how all the businesses try to get Super Bowl business in the lead-up to the game by having sales for the “Big Game” (but they don’t want to pay rights to use the words “Super Bowl”). 
• The safety on the first play from scrimmage was like a punch in the mouth to Denver. They never seemed to get over it.
• The Pick-6 and the kickoff return to start the second half were the finishing touches.
• It was painful to watch Peyton suffering throughout the game. Whether you were rooting for Denver – as everyone was where I watched the game – or whether you were rooting for the other team, he is a class act and a great ambassador for the game. For most of the second half, he just looked like a very unhappy man.
• Even though Peyton was an unhappy man, he carried himself with class and dignity as he always does.
• This year’s commercials were about as uninspiring as the blow-out game was.

The only ‘good’ thing about the end of Super Bowl is that it means we are that closer to the start of the 2014 NFL season and, maybe, this year will be a good one for the Titans with new Coach Ken Whisenhunt leading the way.

As for the 2013 season, there were lots of highlights and great memories. And now, as football fades for a little while, the XXII Winter Olympic games take center stage and March Madness waits in the wings.

A sports lover’s calendar is never completely empty.

JG

Originally posted 2/4/2014