Sports: Super Bowl XLVII, Commercials, Australian Open

Super Bowl XLVII, Commercials, Australian Open

In the depths of winter, it's movie hibernation season; hopefully I'll be able to see a few soon (or more accurately, hopefully there will be some films I want to see released soon).  Until then, I thought I'd check in to take a look at how the 2012 NFL season concluded, review the best and worst Super Bowl commercials, and mention the Australian Open a bit.

2012 NFL Playoffs & Super Bowl

In predicting the 2012 NFL Playoffs, I had some good insights... but even more spectacular failures.  I am most pleased in my prediction - and also the result - of Atlanta "upsetting" Seattle as the NFC's top seed.  They played really well in their two postseason games, seizing full advantage of their home field noise, mitigating their weaknesses on defense as well as possible, and on offense both breaking big plays for scores while also milking the clock pretty well despite a poor running game.  I like this Falcons team, and hope they do well again next year.

And then there were the bad calls.  I thought Green Bay had been building momentum at the end of the regular season, but San Francisco completely annihilated them.  Granted, I did not see it, and only heard a little bit on the radio, but it seemed pretty lopsided to me.  Like many others, I thought that San Francisco would regress significantly this season.  While their defense was less dominant, the QB switch from Alex Smith to Colin Kaepernick was enormously successful.  With a fantastic offensive line, the 49ers should only improve next year with the offseason to fully implement a game plan built around Kaepernick's unique talents.

My biggest miss - and the biggest surprise to me - was Baltimore.  I picked them to lose to the Colts, and expected their next two opponents to thrash them as well.  To my eyes, and I saw the Ravens quite a bit on TV this year, the team simply regressed in almost all aspects.  The defense, riddled by injuries and age, dropped to middle of the pack at best.  QB Flacco had a poor regular season and bad play calling (they fired their offensive coordinator near the end of the season) minimized the impact of RB superstar Ray Rice.  Something, whether it was Ray Lewis' retirement or whatever else, dramatically changed for this team in virtually all facets once the playoffs started, though.  They were the wild-card round team that got in a rhythm this year, with a suddenly red-hot Flacco and a significantly improved, opportunistic defense.

So the Super Bowl teams were set - in my opinion, the best team in the NFC in San Francisco, versus the fourth-best team in the AFC (If you did a round robin tournament with the six AFC playoff teams, I am sure that Denver, New England, and Houston would all do better than Baltimore).  Still, I had picked against the Ravens in three games and been wrong each time, so, ignoring what my head was telling me was the superior team on paper, I predicted the Ravens to win the Super Bowl, 27-24.

The game, played in New Orleans' Super Dome, started with the 49ers looking solid but just a bit tense, unable to finish drives.  Baltimore, on the other hand, capitalized on good field position and moved the ball better than expected in building a 14-3 lead by the midpoint of the 2nd quarter.  A few bad drives from San Fran led to another short field for the Ravens and they got another TD on badly blown coverage.  Just like that, to most people's (myself included) surprise, the Ravens had a dominant 21-6 lead on the 49ers at halftime.

Then the Ravens came out of the locker room with a kick return for a TD - at 28-6, they had their foot on the 49ers' throat.  Finally, though, San Fran put together a nice drive for a TD midway through the quarter... and then the lights went out.  As players milled around and stretched, trying to keep focused, it was potentially a turning point.  Would one team be more affected than the other?  Well, it certainly seemed to help the 49ers as they scored another 10 points in the next four minutes, cutting the deficit to 28-23.  The Ravens responded with a long drive but just a field goal, and the Niners scored yet another TD on the next drive (though they failed the game-tying two point conversion).  Another long drive from Baltimore forced the Niners to go for a TD with about four minutes left - they drove down the field, but the Ravens' D stepped up just in time (plus help from a missed defensive holding penalty on 4th down).  Smart time management from Ravens' coach John Harbaugh sealed the victory, 34-31.

I was certainly rooting for the 49ers, being a Steelers fan (although I do prefer John over Jim Harbaugh).  Still, at least TTSNBN didn't even make the Super Bowl this year!


Commercials

This year's Super Bowl commercials overall were an improvement over the last few years.  There were few if any all-time greats, but also few that were truly terrible.  Average quality was at least decent.  On the other hand, what the hell happened to Budweiser?  They used to always have the funniest commercials, and now they come out with one sentimental commercial and a bunch of crappy ones the last few years.  Here were 2013's top 5 funny, top 5 "good" (creative, awesome, etc.), and 5 worst commercials:

Funny:

Good:

Bad:

2013 Australian Open

I didn't see much of the tournament this year, since of course the time zone difference makes it impossible to see anything but replays.  In the men's bracket, things went pretty much according to plan.  Ferrer, the tough little grinder who's worked up to #4 thanks to Nadal's prolonged absence, got to the quarters where he was smashed by one of the elites (Djokovic).  Murray took down Federer again, this time in a five-setter; Fed himself was tested by Tsonga before winning in five sets; and Djokovic won the tournament for the third year in a row.  The final against Murray was very competitive until Murray seemed to get injured, at which point Djokovic pulled away comfortably.  In the women's bracket, however, things did NOT go according to plan: the top seed actually won!  Serena Williams was stunned by up-and-coming, fellow African American Sloane Stephens, and in a surprise return to top form, Li Na made a run to the finals.

Interesting questions abound for this 2013 tennis season.  For the men, top biggest one of course is whether Nadal can return to form once he's finally back in the mix.  Murray upped his play last year to make a case that there's still a big three - just with Murray instead of Nadal.  Can the Scot take the trophy in his home nation this year?  Will Djokovic keep his hold on the #1 ranking?  Can Federer keep getting to the quarters, semis, and finals of Grand Slams as the other elites seem to be moving past him and second tier players (Tsonga, Ferrer) look to challenge?

For the women, will Serena get back to #1 as seems inevitable?  Can eastern Europeans Azarenka and Sharapova solidify their spots at the top of the rankings by consistently getting to the semis and finals of Grand Slams?  Will there be any new breakout superstars in the making, and is American Sloane Stephens one of them?  Hopefully we've got some more high-quality tennis in store as has been the case the last few years.

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Stay tuned in coming weeks, as hopefully I'll get to the theater to see some new films and then review them here in my blog.