The National Football League hosted its 49th Super Bowl this past weekend, and it proved to be a very exciting and tense game throughout.
The buildup to the season finale had been shrouded in drama among the two final teams. The more public of the two consisted of a few deflated footballs and a poor cover up.
The New England Patriots played the Indianapolis Colts in the game prior to the Super Bowl with the Patriots winning soundly by a 45-7 margin.
However, the victory was marred by reports that New England had deliberately deflated the footballs to tip the game in their favor.
As one can expect, that had many fans in an uproar with allegations that the Patriots had cheated.
It was on this platform that New England entered the Super Bowl stage.
Their opponents, the Seattle Seahawks, had much less drama surrounding their entrance into the final. Although it was somehow just as interesting as the fiasco with the Patriots.
Seattle Seahawks’ running back Marshawn Lynch had the bright idea of wearing golden cleats to the final, to which the NFL quickly demanded Lynch remove them or not compete. Lynch wore his regular cleats to the game and no suspensions were necessary.
With Seattle as the returning Super Bowl champion and the Patriots with their high confidence from their recent victory over the Colts, it was guaranteed that sparks would fly in this matchup.
With the conclusion of the first quarter, it was obvious that both teams were going to fight extremely hard to win this game. The score was still 0-0 and neither team was budging.
At the end of the second quarter moving into halftime, the score was tied at 14-14, with both teams scoring twice in the second quarter. It was obvious from the performances of both teams that this game would go down to the last minute and there would not be an obvious winner early on.
It is important to note that Katy Perry was the halftime entertainment with guest singer Lenny Kravitz and rapper Missy Elliott. Perry started with her song “Roar”, entering the stage on the back of a giant lion.
With the entertainment out of the way, the entire weight of the game began to show on the fans as they realized that the next two quarters would decide which team went home victorious.
Seattle shut out New England in the third quarter and their defense began to show why it was rated number one in the league. However, the Patriots and Tom Brady were not to be denied as they came back from that 10-point deficit to score 14 and win the Super Bowl.
It could be debated that New England should not have won that game with the drama that surrounded the final minutes.
The Seahawks made one last desperate drive to the end zone to score in hopes to put them up by 3 points with little time left on the clock.
They drove to within five yards of the end zone and on first down they gave the ball to Lynch who failed to convert but drove the ball even closer to victory.
With second down and two timeouts remaining, Seattle made the call to go for a short pass and this decision was their downfall.
New England Patriots rookie cornerback Malcolm Butler made his first career interception to secure the win.
New England kneed the ball effectively running the clock out and winning their fourth Super Bowl.
Many fans asked one simple question regarding the play call by Seattle in the dying minutes, “Why?”
Marshawn Lynch, appropriately nicknamed “Beast Mode,” was the obvious choice to drive the football into the end zone and thus hopefully put the game out of reach for the Patriots.
Questions will be asked in the near future of Seattle and hopefully we will get answers but for the moment, this Super Bowl is stuck as the one that the Seahawks should have won.
