I watched the superbowl on Sunday. I’m kind of a closet football fan – I’ll watch football if I get to, and I don’t really care who’s playing, normally. That said, I was excited to watch the superbowl. I’ve been a Seahawks fan since my mum brought me back a Seahawks Jersey from Seattle when I was a little kid. I wore that hideous teal-colored jersey for years. Long before I had any idea that it was a football jersey, or knew where seattle was. Once I learned about footbal, I learned to love the Seahawks. And the Patriots. Because they were both lovably terrible. Not like the Bills, who were frustratingly good back then, and were my “local” team.
Most Superbowls are actually pretty bad games, more about the spectacle than the sport, and this game was really no exception. A dull first-half, punctuated by a couple of big plays by the Steelers and it was done. What really pissed me off though was that this game was totally Seattle’s: They completely dominated the first half. Except virtually every big play they had was called back because of a stupid penalty. I have no idea how many yards they lost due to penalties, but even that would only count yards from scrimmage, not “potential” yards, which would have made it huge. They could easily have come out of that first half up by 3 scores, instead of down 7-3. And the kicker!? How do you miss 2 field goals (Admittedly, 50 yds) indoors? There’s no wind!
Oh well. At least the Seahawks can safely stay in the lovably ineffectual pile now. There’s something satisfying about cheering on a perennial loser. It’s like you can safely cheer because there’s no expectations for success – there’s no need to boo or be despondant when they fail. I wonder if the Red Sox lost fans after winning the World Series? I was never a Red Sox fan, but if I were, I could imagine losing interest once they won. I certainly lost interest in the Pats once they won the Superbowl.