Forget Thanksgiving. Super Bowl Sunday is America’s true unleashing of its nationwide id, the day the nation gorges itself on beer and rooster wings, patriotism, popular culture, hero worship, machismo, fireworks, sanctioned violence and consumerist craving.
If you had been watching on Sunday evening — in fact you had been! — all this. But there was rather a lot happening, perhaps even in your lounge. So right here are some things which may have escaped your consideration as you waited for after which rocked to Rihanna.
1. Nick Sirianni’s Tears
As the nation music star Chris Stapleton sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Eagles Coach Nick Sirianni wept quietly into his beard. A Fox digicam lingered on Sirianni for 10 seconds earlier than chopping away. At the beginning of the third quarter, Fox included Sirianni’s tears in a first-half spotlight reel.
“I don’t really mind that. I wouldn’t like a coach who didn’t wear his emotions out on the field,” Eagles offensive sort out Jordan Mailata stated final week. With Sirianni, he stated, “you know when he’s happy, you know when he’s angry.”
And when he’s listening to the nationwide anthem.
2. Kansas City Fans Being Kansas City Fans
At the tip of the anthem, Kansas City followers on the sport in Arizona upheld an Arrowhead Stadium custom by singing “and the home of the Chiefs” as an alternative of “and the home of the brave.” Before the sport, about 50 individuals protested the title of the staff and the followers’ tomahawk chop hand gesture as a result of they see them as disrespectful to Native Americans, however the traditions reside on.
3. Serena Williams Selling Drinks
Williams, who stated final August that she was “evolving away from tennis,” continued to evolve as a pitchwoman, showing in adverts for 2 alcohol manufacturers, Rémy Martin cognac and Michelob Ultra beer.
The Rémy Martin advert forged Williams as a coach exhorting a soccer staff (and, for some motive, dancers and kitchen staff) to “fight our way back into the light one inch at a time.”
In the Michelob Ultra industrial, a riff on the movie “Caddyshack,” Williams sinks a putt to win a match in opposition to the actor Brian Cox, who stands in for Ted Knight, who performed Judge Smails within the movie.
4. One of the Many Tributes
So many honors had been bestowed throughout the Super Bowl broadcast that it could have been straightforward to overlook at the least one among them.
There had been tributes to America, to the emergency medical staff who saved Bills security Damar Hamlin, to Damar Hamlin, to the previous N.F.L. operating again Walter Payton, to Andrew Whitworth (final yr’s winner of the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award), to Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (this yr’s winner), to the previous N.F.L. linebacker Pat Tillman (who was killed whereas serving with the Army Rangers in Afghanistan), to the Tillman students (veterans who obtain scholarships from Tillman’s basis), to the newest class of Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees, and to Julia Crossley, 12, a sixth-grader from Arizona who was chosen because the N.F.L. Play 60 Super Kid. Among others.
5. Cryptocurrency Ads
You missed them as a result of they didn’t air. Last yr, crypto adverts had been so ubiquitous that the Super Bowl grew to become often known as the Crypto Bowl, with Coinbase, Crypto.com, eToro and FTX — bear in mind the hard-to-impress Larry David? — all shopping for spots.
Today, FTX is bankrupt; its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is awaiting trial on prices that he presided over the theft of billions in buyer deposits; a number of different exchanges have gone bankrupt; and $2 trillion in property have been vaporized.
Can we curiosity you in some cognac?
6. Players Slipping
You would have been forgiven, at sure moments, for mistaking the sport for the N.H.L. Winter Classic. Players on each groups misplaced their footing on the grass in State Farm Stadium, notably on the painted logos.
At halftime, the Hall of Fame quarterback and Fox commentator Terry Bradshaw identified that Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts had became longer cleats. “This field is slippery,” Bradshaw stated. After Rihanna’s halftime efficiency, a legion of groundskeepers labored to fill the divots left by the stage.
In the third quarter, the Eagles’ Jake Elliott slipped whereas kicking off, simply as Kansas City kicker Harrison Butker had executed within the first sport of the season on the similar stadium. Butker missed 4 video games with an damage.
Deadspin posted an article saying, “the N.C.A.A. and N.F.L. should give serious consideration to never playing a critical game in Glendale again.”
All of which will need to have been unsettling for George Toma, 94, often known as the God of Sod, who helped put together the sphere, as he has executed for all 57 Super Bowls.
7. Gronk’s Field Goal Attempt
Rob Gronkowski’s try to kick a subject aim in a promotion for the sportsbook FanDuel, mercilessly promoted throughout the two weeks earlier than the sport, unfolded with all of the narrative stress of a name from a telemarketer. An onscreen label stated the 30-second industrial was reside, nevertheless it didn’t look reside, and it was onerous to inform whether or not Gronkowski, the retired N.F.L. tight finish, made the kick, although he collapsed in a pantomime of disappointment and FanDuel later said he missed it.
8. Rihanna’s Tether
Rihanna floated into the stadium atop a glowing platform suspended by cables. It was a magical — and barely scary — entrance, on condition that she gave the impression to be hovering a number of tales above the sphere. Yikes, what if she danced too near the sting, particularly on condition that she gave the impression to be (and was later confirmed to be) pregnant?
But to not fear: Like a window washer on a scaffold, Rihanna was secured by a cable with what regarded, in pictures, like a sturdy carabiner. And doesn’t that appear to be a security harness beneath her purple jacket?
9. Travis Kelce Yelling
Actually, in the event you watched the postgame celebration, you couldn’t have missed this. Kelce, Kansas City’s star tight finish, answered each interview query as if he had been a Marine recruit responding to a drill sergeant.
“Not one of you all said the Chiefs were going to take it home this year,” he hollered, presumably on the Fox announcers who unanimously picked Philadelphia. “Not one!”
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