Super Bowl LVII

This was a pretty good game, unless you like defense. I will leave most of the political commentary in the capable hands of others.[1]

• Zelensky 🇺🇦 video call, of course
• Marine Corps 🎖
• Military Color Guard 🪖
• Jets flying over the stadium 🛩
• Three or four songs to start it off? ✅
• The National Anthem was a very nice rendition by Chris Stapleton 🎸
• Coaches and players crying like bitches? 😭 Oh, yeah.
• Giant American flag? 🇺🇸 Yup.
• Soldiers and wars mentioned all the time in the run-up? Yup.
• Paeans to America? Oh yeah.
• Mentioning 9–11? Yup.
• Pretending that Pat Tillman wasn’t anti-war[2] and wasn’t murdered by friendly fire? Yup.
• 2h19m into the coverage and still no kickoff? ✅

• The first quarter saw the teams trade a couple of touchdowns 🏈 🏈

  KC 7 – 7 PHI

• First-quarter 🕒

• Eagles 🦅 quarterback Hurts starts the second quarter with a long bomb for a touchdown in the first eight seconds. 🏈

  KC 7 – 14 PHI

• But the Eagles fumble halfway through the second quarter and gift the Chiefs a touchdown. 🏈

  KC 14 – 14 PHI

• Hurts again: long run on his own to set up 4th and 2 at the 6. Chiefs with illegal motion and it’s 1st and goal. Hurts runs it in himself on the first play. 🏈

  KC 14 – 21 PHI

• Mahomes makes a poor quarterback run of his own and is tackled on his injured ankle. Philly gets the ball back and makes a run down the field.

• Philly settles for a field goal and the first half ends.

  KC 14 – PHI 24

• Half-time. 🕕
• Rihanna is high up on a platform. The songs are a mess. It’s fifteen minutes long, but feels longer. Lots of fireworks. 🎆

• KC gets a touchdown 🏈 in the first five minutes, then quickly gets the Eagles to cough up a fumble and scores on that, too. It’s called back ⛔️ because the received did not have control of the ball, which is a totally bizarre call because it very much looked like he did. The German 🇩🇪 announcers had it 100% right, though.

  KC 21 – PHI 24

• Next are a bunch of ⚠️ flags with questioned calls. Philly gets a razor-thin decision on a catch/not-catch, gets the ball back, and KC loses a time-out.

• Eagles settle for another field goal. 🏈

  KC 21 – PHI 27

• Fourth quarter begins. 🕤

• Kansas City comes marches up the field quickly for a touchdown, on a nice positioning fake-out for an easy walk-in. 🏈

  KC 28 – PHI 27

• KC puts tremendous pressure on Hurts and they’re forced to punt. and KC is back on the offense. KC gets another one. 🏈

  KC 35 – PHI 27

• A quick drive, a long pass, an unfortunate step out-of-bounds two yards before the end zone, but then a quarterback sneak, a two-point conversion, and it’s

  KC 35 – PHI 35

• Five minutes left and it’s all tied up. 🕚
• KC gets up the field—with a run from Mahomes—and gets within TD range. They’re a bit early, though. So, they need to waste time before kicking a field goal. The Eagles help them out by holding on a play, giving them a new first down. Chiefs are wasting as much time as they can. It’s 3rd and 5 with less than a minute. They’re at the 7-yard line.

• Field goal KC with 00:08 remaining

  KC 38 – PHI 35

• Hail Mary from Hurts goes nowhere, falling harmlessly into the middle of the field.