While Peyton Manning might not have cared for the way the post-game question was asked, there's little doubt the Denver Broncos produced an embarrassing performance Sunday in the Super Bowl against the dominant Seattle Seahawks.
From the first play, Denver looked out of sorts while Seattle simply did all sorts of thing well.
In between were the folks from Fox Sports, who produced an above-average broadcast of the most-watched sporting event in the United States without setting some unheard of standard of excellence or really reaching an undisputed champion level themselves. They did a strong job, just not quite super.
The game itself was part of the problem, with the unexpected blowout making the game somewhat less interesting -- even though final viewership reached 111.5 million, making it the most-watched program in U.S. history.
Fox Sports deserves credit for not trotting out silly technology it did not need, specifically infrared looks at body heat from players. With the weather as a non-story, they appropriately treated it as such. Likewise, they did not overdue the non-story of Manning's verbal choices at the line of scrimmage.
Of course, had Denver been able to even gain a first down in any sort of timely manner, that could've changed, and on-field audio was one area where the broadcast seemed inconsistent. Sounds form the field (an area TV broadcasts have been emphasizing more and more in recent seasons) seemed more limited in the first half than the second. (Maybe that had something to do with when Denver finally gained some offensive traction, but it was noticeable.)
Overall, Fox was fairly football focused. Not an overabundance of silliness (once the game began) and, best of all, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were honest with viewers. When the game got out of hand, and that happened pretty early, viewers could tell. If they could not tell, Buck and Aikman were professional enough to let them know.
A few replays could have come sooner. More information about injuries a little more quickly. In that way, the game seemed like any other regular season game -- which is not a bad thing. But, with so much talent and technology at hand, the Super Bowl should produce those types of things a little more quickly than a regular season game. To me, that's the difference between standard and super.
Still, the game was without any glaring errors and the absence of Terry Bradshaw (who was in Louisiana for his father's funeral) was handled fairly well during the pre- and post-game shows, when he had the biggest workload. It's a shame emerging Randy Moss did not get more of an opportunity on the air as part of the reworked duties, but he'll eventually earn such a spot.
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