Super Bowl XLVII: What I Learned

I learned that the Superdome infrastructure is about as secure as the city of New Orleans as a whole, which is to say, enjoy it when it's running because it may go out on you in the blink of an eye.  As far as the game, I would direct you to my Twitter handle, @imlddre, to see some of my comments as the game progressed.  I'm very new at this Tweeting while watching thing, so I didn't announce my plan to do so because I decided to do it basically right after kickoff.  A few things I want to mention that I didn't Tweet:  First, a hearty congrats to both Jason and me for correctly picking the Baltimore Ravens to win the Super Bowl before the fucking season began.  It can be discredited since we jumped off the bandwagon during a very tumultuous season, but the fact is, we did pick them in August, and out of the precious few years we have on this planet, only a handful will have either of us nail the Super Bowl winner in August.  So we have to crow a little about that.  All these experts out here can keep taking New England or Green Bay every year hoping they'll get it right eventually, but we had the balls to go off-road.  Unfortunately for Jas, by virtue of me leading the picks contest going in to the Super Bowl, I got to pick who I wanted to win and he had to take the opposite, so in the record books, I'm the one who stuck by Baltimore in the final game.  Some rapid-fire game observations:  Flacco-to-Boldin down the seam is the go-to play for the Ravens in the red zone, and San Francisco failed to stop it for the first TD of the game.  Pitiful.  Who didn't see that coming??  But that captured the whole 1st half, where Baltimore played older and unfazed by the moment and San Fran played younger, faster and careless.  The Ray Rice fumble was big because I thought it came on the exact right play call vs. the 49ers blitz.  San Fran was starting to dial up the pressure in an attempt to shake up QB Joe Flacco, but he coolly laid off a screen pass to Rice, who had room if he could have made it past the cornerback Tarell Brown.  That evened up the RB screw-ups, because LaMichael James stopped a 49er drive cold by fumbling the rock thanks to a Courtney Upshaw hit.  The key play wound up being the Frank Gore run that made it 1st-and-goal for SF late in the 4th down 34-29.  There's no way anyone can argue that wasn't the key play.  Gore is flying down the sideline because the Ravens have done the one thing they couldn't afford to do, and that was let Gore free on the perimeter.  They blitzed Colin Kaepernick the last time the Niners were in the red zone, and he simply got to the perimeter and ran for a 15-yard TD.  They had to know that they couldn't let the Niners run outside, yet there was Gore sprinting towards the end zone and a SF lead.  One man had a chance to stop him, and that man wasn't a safety or cornerback speeding over to cover up for what their linebackers failed to do.  It was linebacker Dannell Ellerbe, hauling ass from the middle of the field to about the 4-yard line just to knock Gore out of bounds and set up 1st-and-goal, which San Fran failed to convert because they remembered that they were young and inexperienced.  I don't credit Baltimore very much for stopping the Niners in a goal-line stand.  San Fran was moving the ball at will basically since after the lights went out.  They stopped moving it with four shots to win the Super Bowl because the moment was too big.  You're telling me Kaep couldn't attempt to run it in once in those four tries?  Couldn't find the greatest receiver ever, Randy Moss, on a jump ball?  Couldn't hand off to Gore and hammer it in behind an offensive line that was getting universal praise all week?  And the only reason they had to make those decisions and choke on the moment was because Dannell Ellerbe busted his ass and stopped Gore from going all the way.  Break the MVP trophy into four pieces and let Flacco keep one, and give the others to Ellerbe, Jacoby Jones, and Anquan Boldin.  Without any of those four men, the Ravens lose.  Two more things:  Yep, there was defensive holding on 49ers WR Michael Crabtree on San Fran's last throw.  All I can say is, the next perfectly officiated NFL game will be the first.  And finally, the way they lit up the field in that torrid comeback attempt, who's got a brighter future than San Francisco?  Maybe nobody.  They sure took a gasoline can and a flame to my love of the under for this game, that's for damn sure.  See y'all for March Madness!!