Take Nothing Away from the Seahawks, But... What a Disappointing Super Bowl

RUSH: I tell you, I thought they were gonna have to drag Rupert Murdoch out of the stadium on a stretcher last night. My God, can you believe how much audience they had to lose during that game in the second half? Can you imagine how many make goods or how much money they're gonna have to be rebating to their sponsors because so many eyeballs -- I'm guessing that there was a huge tune-out the second half, 'cause, man.

Folks, look, I have to be real careful here. As you know, I'm a huge football fan, and I don't want to take anything away from the Seahawks. In fact, grab sound bite number two. I want to remind you of my prediction early on, on Friday, on this program. I'm gonna play the prediction for you. And, by the way, the environmentalist wacko pick also came through with the Seahawks. So whatever I'm gonna say, I don't mean it as anything to take away from what the Seahawks accomplished or pulled off in the game last night. But here's what I said early on, first segment of the first hour of the program on Friday.

RUSH ARCHIVE: I'm leaning toward the Seahawks here for one reason, only one reason. I think it has to do with the defense. I think the Seattle defense can keep Peyton Manning off the field. I think their defense -- because I've studied it, folks, I've looked at tape, and the Seattle defense has the ability to prevent Denver's long drives, time, clock-chewing drive.

RUSH: The only thing I didn't foresee was all the turnovers, but I knew the pass rush. Denver, supposedly they'd stared down a great pass rush from the Kansas City Chiefs twice during the season, but they had never seen what hit them last night. During the game Kathryn looks over at me, "You seem depressed." And I said, "Do I? I am." I was down in the dumps. I thought this whole game, the whole thing, every aspect I thought was a bummer. Look, I'm gonna be very careful. I don't mean to be -- it's a game, it's a national pastime, people's escape and so forth, but, man, I just thought there was so much mediocrity.

I thought the ads, maybe three ads, three or four ads were any good. The rest of them were mediocre. I had spent all this time telling all of you to pay attention to the ads, because advertising people have their finger on the pulse of our culture and if you really want to learn where we are as a country and so forth, make sure you watch the Super Bowl ads, and they were a bomb. Well, that's the thing, it may not be wrong, in terms of just the overall mediocrity.

Now, the Seahawks were not mediocre. Again, I want to stress, I'm not trying to take anything away. I predicted the Seahawks to win, so I gotta be real careful. We got big audiences in Denver and Seattle as well here. We own both towns and we have for many, many moons. I'm just telling you what I thought, and I thought the game coverage was a bummer. The Super Bowl, for the last game of the season, I think having it in New York, something about that, I don't think flew. For the championship game, the championship game the National Football League, that game did not at all put forth the best face of the National Football League. It was like one team didn't even show up. And there I go. I'm not trying to anger you people in Denver. This is not a personal comment on anybody.

The MVP, nobody ever heard of the guy. How do you pick an MVP in a game like that? The MVP might have been Peyton Manning from the Seahawks' perspective. Just kidding. Just to make a point. You know, we've got audio sound bites here, the O'Reilly interview of Obama during the pregame show. Now, folks, let me tell you something. I think that is the wrong venue to do a serious interview of the president of the United States. O'Reilly actually asked really good questions that Obama hasn't been asked before. But that's not the place people want to see that, particularly not on the network that's televising the game, not on the network televising the pregame show.

If you're gonna do an interview with the president, it better be about the game, it better be about football, Americana, this kind of stuff, because now, how many of you know what Obama said? How many of you know how he answered the questions? So now it can easily be said, "Okay, questions have been answered. No big deal. We can move on. Nothing to see here." In a sense, just another wasted opportunity. But there was no way it wasn't gonna happen. The only thing I'm surprised at, O'Reilly was on Fox this morning giving his post-interview recap of how he thought it went. He said (paraphrasing), "Look, I think Obama's a great guy. I think he's got a lot of heart. I don't think he wants to hurt people like these right-wingers do. I don't think Obama wants to hurt anybody. I don't think Obama's trying to ruin anybody's life like these right-wingers."

The only thing that surprised me is that O'Reilly didn't tell Obama that in the interview, which I thought would happen. But it happened, what, 12 hours later. At one point during this game I wondered if the parents of the Broncos' players would try to invoke the "mercy rule." You know how parents in high school, when the team is getting ripped to shreds, the parents stand up and say, "End it! End it! This is humiliating. This is embarrassing our children." I wondered if the parents of Broncos players thought about trying to invoke the "mercy rule."

I don't know, folks. It was just a disappointing thing, and the game... I guess you've answered the question now. The number one offense rolls in, facing the number one defense in a pass-happy National Football League where the rules changes over the recent years have been to favor the offense. They have handcuffed the defense. They have made it tougher and tougher with the safety rules and the hits, trying to limit concussions.

They've just made it tougher and tougher and tougher on defenses, and yet last night defense totally dominated with the pass rush. It was total domination. Peyton Manning didn't have more than a second and a half to throw. Everybody's asking, "Well, why didn't he go deep?" He didn't have time to go 10 yards! "Well, he could have thrown it." He didn't have enough time for the receivers to get deep.

That pass rush was swarming, and those guys were hitting. They were creaming. That first little crossing pattern that was completed to Demaryius Thomas, the defender Kam Chancellor for the Seahawks just knocked the guy 10 yards straight back, and that was after the first snap of the game resulted in a safety. So it was a... (sigh) I was disappointed. I'm dialing it back here, folks, in getting into detail with you. (interruption)

Did I like Bruno Mars? It turns out that might have been the highlight of the game, the halftime show. I had never seen Bruno Mars perform, and I've now only seen. I can't hear those shows. I don't know what's happening. Other than when he played the drums, I can't tell what's going on up there. I have to read the captioning for some of the lyrics, but I can't hear melodies or any of that.

But it seemed exciting. It seemed like those people had talent. It seemed like those people were choreographed. It seemed like those people knew what they were doing, and they brought it there that evening, and they got it all done, in and out, in 20 minutes. They seemed like they were professionals. (interruption) Well, I just... Look, I'm really caught here, 'cause I want to unload, and that's just not the right thing to do here.

I mean, nobody wanted to screw up last night. Everybody was, I think, trying their best, and I'm not just talking about the teams. I'm just not talking about the game. The whole thing, to me, was this is not a Super Bowl. (interruption) The injury reports? What injury reports? What do you mean, what injury...? (interruption) You mean pregame injury...? Oh, well, you know... (interruption) Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I can't tell you the number of times a player is hurt on the field and they have to come out, stop the game, go to a time-out and come back, time-out, and we never learned what happened to the poor schlub. In some cases, we didn't even learn who it was. (interruption) Don't goad me. (interruption) You're in there goading me, Snerdley, 'cause I unloaded with Snerdley. When I walked in the door I unloaded on him.

Snerdley didn't even see half the game. He was flying back from Washington, so he didn't even see it. Let me take a break here, folks, because we got all kinds of stuff happening on the program today. I do want to tell you: The Seahawks, I'm taking nothing away from them. None. (interruption) Mmm-hmm. (interruption) No. No. I'm not saying in the future defense is gonna rule.

In this case, the Broncos... You know, when you're facing a pass rush like they were facing, it wasn't even... They weren't even blitzing them. When you're facing a swarm, I think.... Peyton Manning had a pack of wasps on him all night! In football, the way you deal with that is screen passes, play action passes. He didn't have time for any of that. He didn't have time to make any adjustments, even.

They couldn't go the short passes, couldn't go screen, couldn't go play action, didn't have enough time for any of that to develop. This pass rush was just over the top. (interruption) Well, they lost Knowshon Moreno early on with an injury, relatively early and they were back to their backup. He's not bad. His last name is Ball. But they weren't able to do anything. I tell you what.

Here's one of the great stats: Peyton Manning set a record last night for completions in a Super Bowl game -- 33. In the first half, he had 54 yards. Not on 33 completions. That was for the game. I think he ended up with 280 yards. He had more completions, but some of them were behind the line of scrimmage,. Some of them, you know, gained a couple/three yards here. They... (sigh)

I don't know. I also detected, I wondered, "Is there something wrong with his arm?" He looked like he was pushing the ball last night, not throwing it. But nobody said anything about that, so I probably was seeing things that were not taking place. Anyway, it's true. The Seahawks fans rioted and the Broncos fans didn't -- and I thought, logically, it should be the other way around.

RUSH: How about the Coca-Cola commercial? You see the Coca-Cola commercial in the Super Bowl? The Coca-Cola commercial, it says here in an AP story, "landed in the proverbial hot seat, but not for being lewd -- it showed Americans of different races and ethnicities singing America, the Beautiful in a variety of different languages. After it aired, many took to various social networking sites to express their outrage at the song being performed in any language other than English."

Now, I gotta take back everything I said about watching these, 'cause I warned you -- not warned you, I urged you -- you know, "Watch these commercials, and you'll get a good handle on the pulse of the country. It's up to these advertisers to know how to reach these people to accomplish whatever they want, be it brand enlargement or brand identification, reinforcement, or the actual sale of product that they can track that day."

I mean, ultimately, every advertisement's designed to sell product, but some are results oriented and they want to start tracking it immediately. Others are just brand ID, brand recognition. There are any number of different reasons, but whatever the reason, with as much time as these advertisers have and as many money as they've committed to it, you figure they've got the best people on the campaign whatever it is gonna be run.

So Coca-Cola comes up. If you think the best way, if you are convinced that the best way to sell Coca-Cola to Americans is to sing America the Beautiful in multiple languages, then why don't you produce the product with labels printed in 10 different languages? Every market gets 10 different label versions of Coke. You get 10 Diet Coke labels, 10 more for Sprite and so on, and if you run out of shelf space, just go buy more shelf space and load 'em up. (interruption)

Is that the way to sell Coca-Cola? Is that what...? The whole world sees the Super Bowl, yeah. But I don't think the commercial is intended to be international, and I don't know which commercials... I don't think they're selling these commercials with world advertising rates. They're selling with US sponsorship in mind. These things would be so prohibitively expensive if they were selling spots guaranteeing a world audience.

They couldn't afford it, and you wouldn't know how to measure it in the first place. I thought maybe the Republican leadership was behind the Coke commercial. That's what I thought when I saw it. I said, "Whoa, who got hold of this advertising campaign? The Republican leadership's gotta be doing this." Anyway, there were only three or four ads in the Super Bowl that were memorable. The whole thing just didn't seem like...

You know, I use the word "karma," but it seemed like everybody -- except for the Seahawks -- was running at half speed, at half consciousness. Everybody. It was the weirdest sensation watching the Super Bowl. I never got comfortable watching the whole game. Nothing seemed right, and I really did, I really had visions of Rupert Murdoch being carried out of there on a stretcher in a panic over the ratings.

We'll see. (interruption) Yeah. Snerdley is saying, "It does line up with the times, 'cause it doesn't feel right." There was just too much mediocrity out there, and not commented on as mediocre. The mediocrity was championed as excellence or that we should at least accept it as excellence and I thought it was disastrous.

RUSH: I'm getting e-mail. "Rush, why are you holding back? You don't worry about offending people." Here's the thing. It's a football game. We're not talking about issues and parties and things that dramatically affect people's lives and the status of the country here. I don't want to call people out individually. The best I can tell you is, I thought the whole thing was like everybody involved was at 50% consciousness or 60%. It was not even a good game. It wasn't a fun game to watch. I love good defensive football, don't misunderstand. This game was filled with mistake after mistake after mistake after incompetence after incompetence after incompetence, and there were no adjustments made.

That's why I said I don't want to take anything away from the Seahawks because they may be the primary reason why the Broncos just didn't look like they were even there. I think the game was so bad that the Fox TV crew didn't quite know how to deal with it, 'cause they can't sit there and say, "That's bad. This is horrible." They pay gazillions of dollars to televise this thing and they have to sit there and pump up their partner, the NFL. So they had to try to cover for it, and they did it. I mean, how do you build up something that has nothing redeemable in it, or very little, other than to focus on the defensive players, which, that game, the MVP, nothing against the MVP. I mean, did you see the 911 truther that hijacked the MVP press conference?

Some 911 truther from Brooklyn storms -- think about the security of this. You've got more security at this Super Bowl than at any event in New York in recent years, or at least as much, and the minute the MVP begins his press conference, some 911 truther comes out camera left, takes over the microphone, grabs it with his hand and for five or six seconds starts mouthing the fact the government blew up the buildings, 911 was government run, look into it, and finally security came and dragged the guy away. The MVP's standing there looking, "Oh, gee, what is this? I need some help up here." Who's the security firm here? Wile E. Coyote, with equipment bought from the Acme company?

I don't know, folks, I was just disappointed as a fan. I was just disappointed in the game. (interruption) What cold weather? Oh, well, of course they do, 'cause they dodged a bullet. They got paralyzing snow in New York today, 12 hours difference and they'd be playing the game in that stuff. Of course the cold weather town has now won the Super Bowl. I think it's a mistake. I think the cold weather, the Super Bowl's not supposed to be played in temperatures below 50.

That was one of the age-old NFL rules, Super Bowl game by rule, they had to blow that rule out, cannot occur in a place where the average temperature dips below 50 on the day of the game. That's a law, NFL law. And of course they broomed that 'cause they had to pay off this stadium. I mean, that's the deal. That's how you assign Super Bowls anymore. You get a new stadium, the league will come in and play the game there, help you retire the debt or whatever. That's fine. It's their business. We'll just look at the overnight ratings and we'll see what happened, look at the second half. I'll betcha we're gonna be able to watch the bleed-off of the viewing audience.

Now, we had a sound bite. Let me get on to other things here, folks, 'cause I don't want to be a downer myself. See, I'm gonna tell you. I live in mortal fear that you someday will think of this radio show the way I was feeling watching that game last night, like everybody was phoning it in. That is why I come in here and every day strive to be better than the day before, meet and surpass your expectations. I never, ever phone it in. I live in mortal fear that you will have an attitude like I did about what I was watching last night. I never ever want that to happen. Maybe that's why it's affecting me this way. It's a little personal to me.

RUSH: Here is Matthew Mills, the 911 "truther" that interrupted the MVP press conference with the MVP, Malcolm Smith, of the Seattle Seahawks. This runs by here real quick. It's nine seconds this guy took, but envision this. You've got a crowded, no doubt overheated, small, little area in this giant stadium where tens of 20/30 media people in there, and the MVP still all decked out in winter gear, even though it's not called for. Everybody's sweating themselves crazy, gotta be very close in there, and he's getting ready to answer questions, and out of the blue, from the left on your TV screen, pops up the 911 "truther" who looked like a rabid member of Occupy America.

MILLS: Investigate 9/11! 9/11 was perpetrated by people within our own government!

RUSH: That was the MVP. That was Malcolm Smith, who lightened it up a little bit with his reaction. "Okay, Rush, freedom of speech. A guy can run in there and say whatever he wants." Oh, yeah, he can, but where is the security? How many people were paid? How much security do they have for this event? This guy obviously got on the media press pass. He had to get in that way.

As bad as the Broncos played, they were not embarrassed.

I disagree. They were clearly humiliated, and in every phase of the game, but the most important one is that they were out-coached.

The Broncos simply did not have a viable game plan, and they had no backup plan. They did not respond to the score at half-time in any way.

In a league which is increasingly geared toward offense in general and the passing game in particular, it was good to see a great defense win -- especially when the defenses of most teams in the playoff this year were questionable.

One downside for me, although it would not have materially affected the outcome, and I am not trying to take anything aware from Seattle. Both teams got away with entirely too much holding, especially Seattle's Secondary. There were numerous times that Seattle d-backs arrived way too early and it was only sporadically called. There was also a clear helmet hit on a defenseless receiver that during the regular season would have drawn a flag, and a fine. As I say, given the ferocity of their pass rush it would have made no difference, but still.

I actually have this issue with the playoffs in general. Entirely too many infractions are overlooked in the playoffs every year, and this year was no exception. IF the idea is to "let the guys play," then there is no reason in the world why that philosophy should not also prevail during the regular season. Rules should be enforced consistently from the regular season through to the Super Bowl.

I watched 3/4 of the game at a friend’s house with a bunch of friends from church.

We had a great time, good food, good conversation and fellowship.

The game was incidental.

...as it usually is.

Superbowls are seldom as good as many of the playoff games that determine the participants in the “Big One.”

And, as usual, the game was over-hyped by about 99%. I missed the Pre-Pre-Pregame Show, the Pre-Pregame Show, the Pregame Show, the Pre-Pre-Postgame Show, the Pre-Postgame Show, the Postgame Show, and the Post-Postgame Show.

I did enjoy the singing of Our National Anthem, however.

We’ve been spoiled by 1 score SBs being the norm in the 21st century. Blowouts are gonna happen it’s part of sports. That being said this one was actually pretty entertaining. The Seahawks were having fun, and that’s fun to watch. And I like hard hitting smash mouth football winning the big one, the NFL is a copycat league so this will hopefully lead to more defensive oriented football in the league. Time for the shotgun spread to fade, bring back the mouth punch.

Sometimes a team will leave everything on the field to GET to a Superbowl. When the big game arrives they have nothing left. It looked like that yesterday. It wasnt Manning that lost the game, the whole team looked like they were just going through the motions.

IMO you nailed it. What was clear to me yesterday was that the Seahawks wisely spent every second of the last two weeks studying Broncos footage. They had the Broncos figured out, down to the timing of their plays.

What was equally clear was that the Broncos had not done their homework, didn't think they needed to, or else five of them were still experiencing jet lag after their trip to the Pro Bowl.

I guess it’s only ok if Rush talks about choosing winners and losers based on politics and lefto-wackies. Excuse me.

It is a stupid way for Rush too. If you are conservative and don’t give results then you should be accountable. I feel like this thread and even you a bit are very liberal in your willingness to give someone a pass just because they are conservative. That is a horrid way to look at competition. No wonder we are in deep trouble as a country. Affirmative Action is NOT good for anyone regardless of political affiliation. Basically you want to give conservatives a freebie due to their beliefs regardless of outcome...Scary!!!

Guess we have a different interpretation of the word “embarrassed.”

My college roommate and I played a lot of tennis. He was clearly a superior player, and I remember just winning one game off of him. I wasn’t embarrassed I lost all those games.

I learned a lot playing with him.

Real embarrassment is when you lose against someone patently your inferior. Like losing a debate to Alan Colmes or Denver losing to Jacksonville.

Karma? Karma hasn't started yet.

It's still being determined.

Look, calm down, I was totally impressed with the prowess and physicality of the Seahawks. Their speed and strength won that game.

I was having problems with the many needless comments here putting down Peyton Manning - a decent and great quarterback. You are right Denver was not prepared for the kind of game Seattle gave them.

I don’t fault Manning for his performance and felt bad for him. In another thread I did fault Peyton for the control freak he is in game preparation, and I think it made his team tight. In contrast, coach Carrol had a more relaxed and inspirational approach which proved the more successful obviously.

Yeah? Yeah? We . . . I didn't watch the Superbowl because just as the game was coming on, I heard a sound outside my window. Looked out, and it was a Star-Sprinter. (Star-Sprinters are the smaller craft launched by the humongously larger mother ships.) I ran outside, threw the waterproof coverings off my NSA-surplus laser attack M6-40 and began firing. I knocked out two sprinters right away. Then the sprinters, instead of strafing, began light-bombing runs. (Light bombing runs are when they use light bombs rather than heavy bombs.) When the sprinters peeled away, my Airedale and I went looking for prisoners. Found two aliens using some sort of hyper-gloss boom-boom. I engaged in two fire fights, each lasting several hours. After it was over, I counter 84 alien corpses. I was preparing my flame-throwers to burn the bodies when a black 1897 black Cadillac showed up. Two very tall, not-very-human-looking beings got out and warned me that if I mentioned my fight with they aliens, they'd come back for me. And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is why I didn't watch the Super Bowl. Dumb, stupid people telling us why they're too good to watch a football game.

Everybody on Denver's team played badly. Not just Peyton. They did not play good fundamental football. The defense was horrible with missed tackles and blown coverages. The special teams had terrible coverage, and the onsides kick decision came way too early. By contrast, Seattle played outstanding fundamental football on defense, and had a "good enough" offense to win.

People are going to focus on the pass rush. That's always been the way to beat Peyton, but that's a mistake. Yes, it was good, and forced errors, but Peyton still had time to complete a record number of passes. Far more problematic was that the Seattle linebackers and safeties were "right there!" over and over again. Was the YAC for Denver actually negative? Sure looked that way.

Give some credit to Jack del Rio -- his defensive game plan against the 'Hawks was pretty solid. Lynch was held to under 40 yards, and although Wilson's 123+ PR sounds impressive, he didn't pass all that much. He actually should have been better, but his receivers let him down several times with drops.

Seattle came to play. Denver simply did not look like they did. Whatever the reason, an impressive victory.

The only reason Peyton completed a record number of passes is because after they went up 36 zip the Seattle defense ratcheted it down, they switch to a “nothing deep nothing cheep” defense that basically tell the other team “you can have all the 3 yard completions in the middle of the field you want, but no fast scores or out of bounds clock stoppage”. You can see that in how he only got 280 yards for all those receptions.

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