Touchdown Super Bowl

It is the apex of America’s gladiatorial inheritance from Rome’s Coliseum, one of the biggest events watched by Americans and a growing international audience. Lady Gaga sang the national anthem.

Super Bowl 50 began a week ago with the championship playoffs.

The Carolina Panthers (17-1) of the NFC had it easy with the Arizona Cardinals. The Panthers led early and never looked back, crushing the Cardinals 45-17. Panther QB Cam Newton can develop a winning habit. Panthers’ D is formidable.

In the AFC, the Broncos (14-4) prevailed, but barely. Peyton Manning got the Broncos ahead on the first half. Tom Brady put on a show to catch up. It just was not enough. Brady held the short bag with the Patriots 18, Broncos 20.

Super Bowl was marketed to be archaically impressive as the number of the game was in Roman numerals, would have been SB L rather than SB 50.

Manning will be the oldest QB when SB 50 kicks off. He appeared on four SBs, won only one. A win this time will make him fade gloriously into the sunset.

Venue of SB 50 is at the Levi’s Football Stadium in Santa Clara, CA, home to the SF 49ers (a costly promo for Levi Straus, the San Francisco jeans company). Early on, the 49ers and San Francisco tried to retain the team at Candlestick Park but negotiations fell apart; the 49ers’ office and training facility is located in Santa Clara so they got an offer. SF’s condition was that the 49ers retained their name.

Levi’s Stadium is a very sophisticated football field in the League, garnering awards for a design that created a multi-purpose venue focused on fans’ experience and a top ecological green technology feature, to boot. The playing field green grass beats the plastic turfs of many gridirons; solar panels are installed on the roof and the thermal comfort control and the programmable lighting control systems are examples of the eco-friendly engineering and architectural design that went into the planning.

The professional football game that culminated in today’s Super Bowl is distinctively American. Its international version is “soccer,” which is really football. One kicked the ball from one end of the field to the other until it makes it through the netted upright. American football, other than when they kick the ball, is anything but football. It is mostly carrying the ball and roughing the other guy, or the QB throws the ball to a receiver who takes it to the end zone, and the audience roar their approval, sometime simulate a wave in their painted faces.

The menacing growl of the forest panther and the wild bucking of the feral horse was a marketing image used in today’s contest. The Bronco is usually caught in the wild, now used in rodeos, domesticated but trained to buck its rider. The panther as jaguar is best left alone in the wild, like the puma, mountain lion, leopard, cougar, the jag is the favored mount of Dionysius in ancient mythology.

The Panthers were a 5-point favorite coming into the game but by the end of the 1st Q, the Broncos led 10-to-zilt. Momentum tilted toward the Panthers who scored on the 2nd Q but the Broncos added another upright kick as Broncos scored 13 to Panthers 7 to end the half.

The halftime hoopla had Beyoncé in Chris Martin’s Coldplay band that featured Bruno Mars, too. One probably needs to have slow motion to appreciate the new technology that goes into the 30-minute production. What is on stage is not a personality but acts of precision and symmetry, though Beyoncé’s leggy team did not displease. Technicians handled voice and light well, and the camera work had drones overhead, cameras all over the stadium. However, the CBS broadcast had an echo that doubled the vocals.

The Panthers started the 2nd half but its drive sputtered and its kick hit the upright so the Broncos took over. Peyton Manning dealt with the daunting Panther D, his drive sputtered as well. The three-point field goal was successful making the score 16-7. Cam took over and was heading to the end zone when a pass was too strongly thrown that it was intercepted. The Broncos’ running back took it up from the team’s end zone but the Panther D kept an uncrossable line. Cam kept scrambling but was sacked five times on the 3rd Q, ending 16-7 Broncos.

The 4th Q had Manning stripped of the ball and Cam went to work but could only earn a field goal, 16-10, still Broncos but only a touchdown away. But Cam was intercepted and the Broncos went Buckaroo. Manning added a score and a two-point conversion. The final score was Broncos 24, Panthers 10. The newcomer Newtown was out-Manned by age and experience.

In the CNMI, workers nursed their Bud clustered in front of communal TVs. At home, the lady of the house kept the pizza and Heineken coming for “hungry and thirsty men.” Right, Ladies? Yo, where did you go?