Takes on air pressure and morality and things of that nature were so hot that Mark Brunell's tears could have melted the steel beams at University of Phoenix Stadium, where the Patriots ultimately beat the Seahawks in perhaps the greatest Super Bowl ever.
Had the Patriots lost that game, take a long look at everything that's transpired in the two year's following Malcolm Butler's interception and tell me you'd be able to put up with the continued DeflateGate/SpyGate talk, the Trump/Patriots talk, the "when will Brady and Belichick retire" talk.
The stakes for this game would be exponentially higher. The Patriots would be a loss away from a losing record in Super Bowls in the Brady-Belichick era, with four straight losses after winning the first three. They'd be the 2004 Yankees and 2010 Bruins wrapped up into one long, drawn out agonizing string of pain.
So we don't have to fret about any of that happening, which is nice. The Falcons really just inspire apathy though, since their two most famous players either A) were arrested the night before Super Bowl XXXIII for soliciting a prostitute hours after winning an award for being an outstanding citizen or B) killed dogs.
If you think the Patriots are due for a blowout win (or loss, for that matter) in a Super Bowl, you aren't wrong. Their six trips under Brady-Belichick have been decided by 3, 3, 3, 3, 4 and 4 points, respectively. Reminds me of the Fibonacci sequence from when I took math plus in sixth grade.
No matter how boring the game may or may not be, one thing we know for sure is that the halftime show will be a talking point.
My musical taste has been described as that of a 60-year-old hardware store owner so Lady Gaga isn't exactly in my wheelhouse, but there's no doubt she'll put on a performance for the ages. I'm anticipating all of our favorite jams from 2009 make the cut, such as "Just Dance" and "Poker Face" and maybe, just maybe, "Bad Romance..."
...does that at all feel like a Super Bowl halftime show set list? Of course not. If there's one thing Roger Goodell knows better than botching independent investigations and displacing fan bases nationwide, it's giving fans an odd hodgepodge of Super Bowl halftime performers.
This really isn't a knock on Gaga, who I know many people are goo goo for, but think back to some of the truly great Super Bowl halftime performances of the last 15 or so years. I'm not picking up what's being put down.
Using Super Bowl XXXVI as a cutoff point, here are the top five Super Bowl halftime shows of the modern era. But first, some notables that didn't quite make the cut:
- Super Bowl XL (Steelers 21, Seahawks 10): The Rolling Stones
- No one (under the age of 50) loves the Stones more than me, but in journalism school, one of the first things they taught us was to be objective and not to show any bias. And my friends, I cannot tell you with a straight face that this was a good halftime show. Not that "Satisfaction" and "Start Me Up" are bad songs, but that's the equivalent of going to a fourth grade recorder concert and hearing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Hot Cross Buns." A bland, vanilla, predictable set list which also included a new song at the time, "Rough Justice," which isn't even in my top 100 Stones tunes. I guess you can't always get what you want.
- Super Bowl 50 (Broncos 24, Panthers 10): Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars
- There were lip syncs at Hingham High put together better than this. Which is a shame, because Coldplay alone would've been great, and both Beyonce and Mars were bright spots at Super Bowls in the not too distant past. I guess in addition to slowly killing the game of football, Goodell wanted to put a stake through the heart of "Uptown Funk" once and for all as well
The Top 5
5. Super Bowl XLIII (Steelers 27, Cardinals 23): Bruce Springsteen
The Boss kept it simple, and I mean that in a good way. His energy level was right and he played a strong set list, not veering too far away from the norm. "Born to Run" and "Glory Days" were no-brainers, while "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" was a pleasant surprise at the beginning. Should he be penalized for playing then-recently released "Working On a Dream" instead of another tried and true jam like a "Dancing in the Dark" or "Thunder Road?" Perhaps. But compared with the Stones' selection of "Rough Justice" a few years before, it fit in just fine.
4. Super Bowl XLVII (Ravens 34, 49ers 31): Beyonce
The Destiny's Child reunion was fire flames. Everything was, really. Simply put, Bey worked it, girl.
3. Super Bowl XXXIX (Patriots 24, Eagles 21): Sir Paul McCartney
There were quite literally a million directions McCartney could've gone, given his Beatles and Wings catalogs, but I have no qualms with the path he chose. From the upbeat "Drive My Car" to Mark "Get Back" Loretta (or "Get Back" JoJo LaFell, if you prefer) he set the stage for an epic ending with his only truly great Wings jam in "Live and Let Die" (Maybe I'm Amazed is great too, although not necessarily a jam) before "Hey Jude" brought the place down in what was probably the greatest moment in the history of Jacksonville up to that point. Rodney Harrison's interception of Donovan McNabb surpassed it about an hour later, but it remains No. 2 in the illustrious lore of Jacksonville's past.
2. Super Bowl XLII (Giants 17, Patriots 14: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Throwing aside the result of the game, which is admittedly difficult to do, Tom Petty could not have manufactured a better set list if he tried. The ordering of the songs worked to perfection, leading off with "American Girl," followed by "I Won't Back Down" and "Free Fallin'" to ending with one of the all-time great closers, "Runnin' Down a Dream." If you think about it, the Giants wouldn't back down from the Patriots, who were in the midst of a free fall from running down their dream of 19-0. I hate myself.
1. Super Bowl XXXVI (Patriots 20, Rams 17): U2
If you don't get chills on chills on chills listening to "Where the Streets Have No Name" with a list of the 9/11 victims scrolling in the background, you're just a character on Lost: you've been dead this whole time.
Future Halftime Shows We Need to See
- Foo Fighters
- Would be a perfect blend between the old-time rock and rollers and the more contemporary household names. "Learn to Fly" would be required, with "The Pretender" to close it out.
- Fleetwood Mac
- There is no more criminally underappreciated singer from any era than Stevie Nicks.
- Eminem
- As long as he doesn't accidentally play "Stan," which I accidentally left on a CD for my high school graduation party, I think we're good here. "Lose Yourself" would be an all-time moment.
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