The Return of the Wire Hanger Super Bowl

​ Well, that sucked.

After the usual two weeks of hype, the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots delivered the most boring Super Bowl I can remember.

The game put the “foot” in football, with the Seahawks kicking a record five field goals and both teams piling up the punts.

Neither team scored a touchdown until the third quarter, and by that time, it seemed a foregone conclusion to anyone still away that the Seahawks were better and would win. 

Congratulations are deserved by the Seahawks, but it’s hard to tell how responsible the Seattle defense was for stifling the Patriot offence. The Seahawks pass rush was powerful, shoving the Patriot linemen back into the pocket, but the Pats seemed perfectly capable of stopping themselves. 

There wasn’t much to see, and from where I happened to be sitting, it was hard to watch.

We watched at a friend’s awesome Super Bowl party. He had several huge, new TVs set up. But as one guest noted, he had the best sets, but the worst provider.

Turns out the main set I was watching was hooked up to an antenna for over-the-air reception of the NBC station WMAQ,

The picture was often pixelated and occasionally went totally dark.

After a particularly long outage, we decided to move the antenna, which was on the windowsill. To elevate it, we bent a wire hanger so that it would hold the antenna and attach to the track that holds the blind. It held up, and the picture quality improved, though there were still glitches from time to time.

I don’t know how much the decision to use a hanger to fix TV reception resonates with people today. I can remember watching the best Super Bowl, Super Bowl III in 1969 when the New York Jets upset the heavily favored Baltimore Colts.

We watched on a set in the den with an antenna. Sometimes it was my job to adjust the antenna or just hold it if that made the picture better. I don’t recall if we did it that day, but often the aluminum foil was brought out from the kitchen to augment the antenna in pursuit of a better picture.

That memory was brought back when my host handed me the hanger during Super Bowl on Sunday.

We often talk about the joy of free over-the-air TV in my work life writing about the media. But this was a clear example of why people pay for cable and streaming. 

Sorry, Bill

I’m a big fan of Bill Simmons’ Ringer podcast and I was looking forward to listening to him after the Super Bowl. Simmon is a Boston fan and I’m not sure whether he’s more entertaining following a triumph by the Patriots or Celtics, or after a crushing defeat.

He didn’t disappoint after the Pats got crushed. As a Jets fan, I almost felt sorry for him. Not. And his foil, Cousin Sal helped needle him and “Drake Maybe.”

You and the Patriots have won enough and I admit I was happy to see the Seahawks dominate.

Snow Business on the Slope

Seeing Lindsey Vonn being lifted by helicopter of the Olympic downhill slope Sunday was an amazing spectacle. But one that never should have happened.

Vonn, making an inspiring comeback to qualify for the U.S. team, tore the ACL in her knee when she crashed during a training run last month. Despite that she persevered and set out to ski at the Winter games in Italy.

Vonn crashed second after starting her Olympic downhill, breaking her leg. I admire her gumption but, in hindsight, it was a bad idea, even if the accident was the result of her clipping her arm on a gate, rather than a consequence of a weakened leg. 

I doubt if she’d been part of a professional team sport, the team would have allowed her on the field. But even on the U.S. team, skiing is an individual venture. She had every right to make her choice, but she didn’t make the right one. I hope for her the regret of what might have been is outweighed by the pain of her injuries.

Here Comes the Judge

One of my favorite commercials during the Super Bowl was for NBC Sports’ upcoming coverage of Major League Baseball. It shows several NBC personalities including Craig Melvin, Keenan Thompson and Seth Meyer as baseballs come crashing out of nowhere. They blame Aaron Judge, who is taking batting practice way up in the Bronx. Good stuff.