Jason Kelce and his wife, Kylie, may have unwittingly put this Super Bowl on blast during their YouTube commercial when he posed “Why would anybody settle for just meh?”
Super Bowl LX was meh.
Fifteen punts, five field goals.
A combined 10 of 31 on third down conversions.
Zero touchdowns after three quarters.
Seattle 29, New England 13.
The Patriots were on the brink of historic offensive lows until “exploding” for all of their points in the fourth quarter. No team has ever been shut out in a Super Bowl.
New England’s running backs (a misnomer), Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson, rushed for 42 total yards. Their longest run was nine yards. Meh.
The only thing worse than Patriots quarterback Drake Maye’s accuracy (10 errant tosses) was his pass protection (six sacks). He had a QB rating of 16.3. Well below meh.
It was not like the Seahawks were explosive when they had the ball. They were just less offensive. Quarterback Sam Darnold’s longest completion was for all of 23 yards.
But the much-maligned Darnold didn’t turn it over.
Instead, he wisely handed it off to Kenneth Walker, who rushed 27 times for 135 yards and won the Most Valuable Player award. Walker edged out the field goal kicker.
The last time a running back was named the MVP of the Super Bowl was nearly three decades ago. It was Denver’s Terrell Davis at SB XXXII in San Diego, California.
Remember that one, Packers fans?
Davis had 30 rushes for 157 yards and three touchdowns in the Broncos’ 31-24 victory over Green Bay at Qualcomm Stadium. The Packers were a 12-point favorite.
Denver snapped a 13-game losing streak for American Football Conference teams in the Super Bowl. It was the Broncos’ first triumph in five SB attempts.
Despite pedestrian quarterback numbers — 12 of 22 for 123 yards — John Elway broke a personal three-game losing streak in the Super Bowl. But he didn’t stop there.
Elway put the finishing touch on his Hall of Fame career by leading the Broncos back to Super Bowl XXXIII and a win over the Atlanta Falcons. He was the MVP in his final game.
By going back-to-back, Elway topped Green Bay’s Brett Favre, who came up short in pulling that off in San Diego with the Packers, the defending champs.
Favre was 25 of 42 for 256 yards. His first-quarter pass was picked off by Denver defensive back Tyrone Braxton, 33, a product of Madison Memorial High School.
Braxton, an 11-year NFL veteran, led the Broncos with seven tackles, six solos. He had 10 family members at the game. And he said they were all crying because of their joy.
To paraphrase Braxton’s postgame comments, anything that makes you work that hard to get, i.e. a Super Bowl win, makes you cherish it that much more when you get it.
Words of wisdom.
John Elway lost three Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos before reaching the big game again in 1998. Taking on Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, Elway would not be denied a fourth time. Tied 24-24, the Broncos, led by Elway, drove down the field late in the fourth quarter and scored to pull ahead for good with just under two minutes remaining.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY / GETTY IMAGES
Coincidentally when Davis was the MVP of Super Bowl XXXII it was also broadcast by NBC, with Dick Enberg on play-by-play for the network.
Engberg’s analysts were Paul Maguire and Phil Simms, whose son Chris was among NBC’s pregame announcers for Sunday’s telecast of Super Bowl LX from San Francisco.
The Super Bowl XXXII halftime show was a tribute to Motown’s 40th anniversary with Boyz II Men, Smokey Robinson, Quenn Latifah, Martha Reeves and the Temptations.
The Super Bowl LX halftime show was Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga.
A Super Bowl commercial in 1998 for SB XXXII cost $1.29 million for 30 seconds. Sunday’s commercial spots cost between $8 million and $10 million for 30 seconds.
There were many highlights from this year’s ads.
Pepsi stealing the Coca-Cola polar bears and a “Kiss Cam” visual revisiting the Coldplay concert moment was funny.
There was good chemistry between Matthew McConaughey and Bradley Cooper on the “Foodball” discussion for Uber Eats.
The Novartis “Relax your tight end” finger free test for prostate cancer with Bruce Arians and Rob Gronkowski was well done.
My favorite was the Budweiser commercial pairing a stately Clydesdale with a baby eagle, with the former nurturing the latter through the elements and much more.
Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” is playing in the background when the bald eagle spreads its majestic wings and eventually takes flight.
“Made of America. For 150 years, this Bud’s for you.”
For historical perspective, the price of a 30-second commercial in Super Bowl I was about $37,500. That was staged in 1967 at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.
Green Bay 35, Kansas City 10.
It was billed as the “supergame,” bridging the divide between the American Football League and National Football League. NBC and CBS had the broadcast rights.
The halftime show revolved around trumpeter Al Hirt and the marching bands from the University of Arizona and Grambling College.
But that halftime also gave rise to one of the most famous photographs of all time. It pictured Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson in the locker room.
Dawson was sitting on a folding chair. His helmet was on an adjoining chair. Dawson was casually puffing on a cigarette. Between his feet was a bottle of Fresca. It was classic.
Anything but meh.