Congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks on a well-deserved Super Bowl win. I just don’t get the bluster about how the game was boring and not competitive. Not competitive? Both teams really played an excellent defensive game, but the Seahawks defense was just a few notches better and the Patriots offense couldn’t muster anything the entire game. Give the Seahawks defense all the credit.
I think Mike Tirico and Chris Collinsworth did an excellent job calling the game and Collinsworth especially pointed out multiple times how the defensive schemes of both teams were so effective and set the tone for the game.
So it’s amazing to see the comments expressing such disappointment in the game, especially from those who have been in the broadcast booth and have witnessed all kinds of games – high-scoring offensive assaults, low-scoring defensive battles, one-sided blowouts, and tight close-scoring nail-biters. What made Super Bowl LX boring and not competitive?
On March 10, 1981, was one of the most exciting baseball games I have ever witnessed, and I was at the microphone for all nine innings of the action. That was the night at Mark Light Stadium that University of Miami southpaw Neal Heaton struck out 23 Indiana State Sycamores. One by one they went down, just like Bugs Bunny against the Gashouse Gorillas – one…two…three strikes you’re out. There was no barn burner, no moon shots into the Coral Gables sky, no fireworks. Just a pitcher’s duel dominated by one Neal Heaton.
Just because it wasn’t a display of offensive outbursts doesn’t mean it wasn’t a great game. On the contrary, it was something to behold.
Why does every sporting event in today’s era HAVE TO BE an offensive juggernaut or it’s considered dull and boring?
Major League Baseball has become nothing more than an amalgamation of some game of Home Run Derby. It’s all about hitting home runs. The art of pitching is a lost art. No more complete games. Forget about complete games, pitchers are LUCKY to go 5 innings, long enough to get a win, thankful to go 6 innings, and so grateful to go 7 innings that they will get an extra day off because of the over-exertion. All-field, no hit shortstops, like Mark Belanger of the great Baltimore Orioles teams, no longer have a role in today’s game. Low-scoring pitching duels that go into extra innings are of no interest. It doesn’t matter that fans don’t actually stay in their seats at a game anyway, but they certainly aren’t going to be watching if there is no potential for a Pete Alonso to hit a bomb into Flushing Bay.
As a young fan I came to appreciate and love the New York Knicks of the Red Holzman era, specifically the period from 1969 through 1973 during which the Knicks captured two NBA titles for the 1969-70 and 1972-73 seasons. Those teams were all about unselfishness, teamwork, and, more than anything, defense. Sure, the Knicks had Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Bill Bradley, and even a guy by the name of Cazzie Russell who could all score with the best of them. But they all took pride in the defense.
I am pretty sure it was the Madison Square Garden faithful that started the chant DEE- FENSE…DEE-FENSE…DEE-FENSE!
One of the most successful teams in NFL history is the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970’s, winning four Super Bowls in a six-year span, a team whose defense was known as The Steel Curtain. The Steelers had offensive weapons in QB Terry Bradshaw, RB Franco Harris, and WR Lynn Swann…but the names on defense were well known – L.C. Greenwood, Ernie Holmes, Dwight White, and Mean Joe Greene on the line with Jack Ham, Jack Lambert, Andy Russell at linebacker, and Mel Blount, the team’s MVP in 1975 anchoring the defensive backfield.
That team won Super Bowl IX in 1975, 16-6, over the Minnesota Vikings, and then won Super Bowl X, 21-17, over the Dallas Cowboys. Hard-fought defensive battles.
Oh…and remember…one of the greatest Super Bowl games in history goes all the way back to Super Bowl III. The New York Jets, yes, the franchise that Sam Darnold was once a part of, beat the powerful and heavily favored Baltimore Colts in a defensive war, 16-7. Dull and boring? That game is heralded as one of the best games in not only football history, but sports history.
Go figure.
