Super Bowl XLV: Exactly as Predicted, Yet Not Boring at All

Photo taken from Sportsillustrated.com

The Green Bay Packers are Super Bowl champions for the first time since Brett Favre did it back in the 90s. And yet, no one really cares because we already knew they would win when they won in the Wild Card round. Nobody could have predicted the Steelers would make the Super Bowl after losing Ben Roethlisberger for the first 4 games, but they did it anyway, overcoming supposedly better teams and negative opinions by fans and analysts. But it didn't matter, the Packers entered the playoffs as potentially the most dangerous team in the league and they lived up to it. With the defeat of the Saints and the Packers overcoming the Eagles, everything was sealed.

Everyone predicted a close game. Everyone predicted a shoot-out. Everyone predicted no hard feelings from either side. Everyone predicted the Packers would win due to their defense and Aaron Rodgers throwing perfectly placed passes. Suffice it to say, the Super Bowl lived up to everyone's expectations. So how does something go exactly as planned but not seem boring? One word: Drama.

It was impossible to not turn your head and find drama somewhere during the Super Bowl. Players getting injured and being taken out of the game? Oh, no, no, no, the drama was far more intense than that! To begin the evening, Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys and Cowboys Stadium charged people $900 to stand outside in the cold and watch the game on a large screen. Next up, it was discovered that over 400 people would have to be excused from the Super Bowl due to overbooking. The Dallas Cowboys organization immediately promised a triple value refund for all displaced fans. Not like that matters, because they still had to pay for flight and hotel, and many fans paid extra money to scalpers. Next up in the evening, Christina Aguilera performed one of her infamously long and vibrato-ridden renditions of "The Star Spangled Banner." For some reason, people think that Aguilera performs the national anthem beautifully. I personally think she rapes it of all emotion and meaning whenever she sings it. Tonight, she raped it (albeit unintentionally) by flubbing a line in the middle of the song. She definitely realized the flub, saying "thank you" very meekly after she finished the song. All this was even before the game started!

The halftime show was well-anticipated, the NFL finally trusting a contemporary band to perform for the first time since the Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake "Nipplegate" incident. Ever since then, the halftime show was headlined by Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Prince, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and The Who, all singers and groups that people of the key 15-30 demographic had no involvement in whatsoever. Finally, Roger Goodell felt it was time to let the past stay the past and hired the Black Eyed Peas to do the halftime show, effectively welcoming back contemporary artists. There was still drama and surprise involved, when Slash of Guns n' Roses fame made an appearance and Usher briefly performed. The show went off flawlessly and without controversy, displaying that it was OK for contemporary artists to take the stage once again.

But there was one giant thing looming over everyone's heads and it became especially notable once the FOX analysts and commentators never mentioned it: the looming CBA negotiations. We may have just watched the final football game of 2011 as talks are going to heat up and neither side relents. If a lockout does end up happening, we could be looking forward to seeing another potential lockout happen with the NBA and its own CBA problems. If football and basketball were to both be locked out, expect massive change in the sports world, with sports fanatics tuning back into baseball for the regular season and even watching hockey to get their fix. If such a double lockout were to happen, it's entirely likely Roger Goodell and David Stern could both lose their jobs.

Pray for a double lockout, if only to improve both the NFL and NBA in the long run. An NFL lockout could also possibly accelerate a team moving to Los Angeles.