More than just Your Typical Title Game

I think it's safe to say that productivity in the Badger state will be at historically low levels today.

Even though the game was great -- and the outcome even better -- critics are already excoriating Super Bowl XLV as one of the worst ever in terms of execution. Here's the Times:

Without the great game, it was a calamity. The weather stunk, with ice injuring people as it cascaded off the Cowboys Stadium roof. Somehow sections of temporary seats turned up unfinished, leaving 400 ticket-holding fans fuming over being turned away from the game. There was the looming cloud of the lockout, which Goodell blithely tried to explain while all but standing in a pool of money, the ridiculous material excess of his league’s showcase game all around him. Christina Aguilera botched the national anthem. The ads mostly stunk.

Fanhouse is basically pointing an accusatory finger in Jerry Jones direction. Judging by all the rave reviews of celebrity-packed pregame parties I read last week it seems like more attention was paid to luxuriating the high rollers than to the details of the big game itself. I mean, even Slash himself couldn't save the Black Eyed Peas cover of "Sweet Child o' Mine."

The ticket fiasco was unconscionable and seems to only be getting worse. I can all but guarantee you that none of the affected ticket-holders were at the game on a corporate junket, could write off the trip as a business expense or were comped the tickets by a client. These folks were fans who paid between $5,000-$15,000 out of pocket to get the shaft on game day.

Thank God the game itself was awesome, a far cry from the days when the Super Bowl was a ritual blow-out surrounded by lavish (if not weird) spectacles. A lot of that had to do with the historic nature of the meeting between the NFL's two premier teams. A month ago both the Packers and the Steelers could lay claim to being the League's best franchises and left unsaid by many commentators last week was the fact that the Super Bowl was more than just an annual title game: this was a game to settle which team could claim bragging rights as the best football organization of all time. Anyone who suggests that the Steelers are the flagship organization of the NFL now has to contend with the fact that they lost to the Packers on the game's biggest stage.