God bless the Internet. The problem was that my friends all have children under 4 and by the time halftime rolled around it was bedtime. Because of that there was no way to keep interest high since everyone had retreated to their own dens and living rooms to answer e-mail, read Wikipedia entries, flip through the latest issue of The Economist all while following the action of the game on Deadspin's live blog. Was there anything better to do? The first half of the game was pretty fun. Devin Hester's TD return will go down as one of those memorable moments in the history of the Super Bowl, but after that everything went just as I had predicted. Take away Hester's run and the game is over midway through the second quarter. Still, the game was not the worst ever. It's doubtful it was even the most boring – just typical. Worst Super Bowls: * XXIV Jan. 28, 1990 San Francisco 55, Denver 10 * XXXV Jan. 28, 2001 Ravens 34, N.Y. Giants 7 * XXXIII Jan. 31, 1999 Denver 34, Atlanta 19 * XLI Feb. 4, 2007 Indianapolis 29, Chicago 17 * XXIX Jan. 29, 1995 San Francisco 49, San Diego 26 * XXVIII Jan. 30, 1994 Dallas 30, Buffalo 13 * XXVII Jan. 31, 1993 Dallas 52, Buffalo 17 * XXVI Jan. 26, 1992 Washington 37, Buffalo 24 * XV Jan. 25, 1981 Oakland 27, Philadelphia 10 * XXI Jan. 25, 1987 N.Y. Giants 39, Denver 20 Was anyone hoping (like I was) that Prince would proclaim, "Game. Blouses," at the end of his performance?
Peyton Manning finally won the championship that had eluded him for so long, but for my money the MVP of Super Bowl XLI was a 5-foot-2, 100-pound, 49-year-old man. Clearly Prince had the best moves all night. The commercials were bad, the weather was awful, the game was sloppy and anticlimactic. Midway through the third quarter I nearly gave up and took to answering e-mail, reading Wikipedia entries, flipping through the latest issue of The Economist all while following the action of the game on Deadspin's live blog.