Awful NFL season ends with awful Super Bowl

BUCCANEERS 31

CHIEFS 9

The 2020 NFL season is over. Thank god!

A season that was almost across the board unenjoyable, and felt empty and largely felt manipulated, ended with the worst outcome imaginable. With a result that not only continues this 20 year nightmare but that will frankly hurt the NFL for years to come.

I was not looking forward to this game. I knew this was going to happen. Maybe not in blowout fashion but I knew the NFL was going to see to it that Tom Brady got his 7th title. The house wins.

The game was never fun. Right from the start the Chiefs seemed sleepy, like they weren't really in it. This team plays with swagger, but in this game they had none. Patrick Mahomes was under enormous pressure from the start.

The Chiefs grabbed the 1st lead at 3-0 but then from basically the end of the 1st quarter until halftime it was a nightmare.

The Chiefs offense remained lifeless. The Chiefs defense did manage a goal line stand that at the moment seemed like it could be a turning point. But it wasn't and soon the Chiefs punted it back to Tampa.

Then the refs completely took over the game, and more or less decided the game.

Brady was picked off by Tyrann Mathieu. Except here comes a flag for a defensive holding that wasn't. First down.

Chiefs still force a field goal try. But they get called for lining up offsides. We see one replay that doesn't show anybody offsides. First down.

Brady hits future CTE victim Gronk for a 2nd TD and it's 14-3.

The Chiefs drove to a field goal to at least keep hope alive. They would get the ball to start the 2nd half after all. 

But then Andy Reid opened the door to more shenanigans. Reid inexplicably called 2 timeouts on the next Tampa drive. Tampa looked largely content to just secure their 8 point lead and go watch The Weekend (spell it right). But after Reid called a timeout on a 3rd and short, Tampa switched gears. Brady chucked a completely uncatchable deep ball to Mike Evans, whose feet got inadvertently tangled with the defender. So it was both not DPI and uncatchable. No matter. The refs weren't going to miss this chance to gift wrap more points to the golden boy.

Still another outrage came when Brady threw a ball away in the endzone, but the refs decided to call yet ANOTHER bullshit penalty in the endzone, making it 1st and goal. Tampa scores again and just like that the refs have handed the Bucs 14 points.

I came as close as I ever have to just turning the super bowl off. I mean this was bullshit on a level I have never seen before. The game was being so blatantly, brazenly rigged that even the CBS halftime crew called out how bad it was.

The whole 2nd half was a waste of time. The Chiefs got a field goal that meant nothing at that point. You could tell the Chiefs defense had the fight sucked out of it. Why give full effort when the refs won't let you even play? Tampa scored again and it was 28-9 and by that point the only mystery left was if Mahomes could at least get one in the endzone. He didn't. 

I have rarely felt worse for a super bowl losing quarterback. Mahomes will likely have more cracks at this game. But he is now forever going to have this loss hanging over him. I wonder if the NFL cares that they have taken the player who is set up to be the face of the league for the next decade-plus and saddled him with the "but he couldn't beat Brady" narrative? And aside from it being just a bullshit narrative at the outset, it is so undeserved. Mahomes played valiantly to just try to make something of this game. His line was like 5 Dru Samias. His receivers were like a bunch of Troy Williamsons. He had zero running game to help out. The coaches made no apparent plan for dealing with the 2 missing tackles, nor did they make any noticeable adjustments during the game. He was practically out there all by himself, running around like Fran Tarkenton, desperately trying to make big plays. He nearly did a few times.

While Mahomes ran for his life and got no help, his counterpart barely had to do a thing. Brady was never pressured. His run game did not abandon him. His receivers actually caught balls. And the refs bailed him.out anytime something went off script. And in a game where his defense surrendered zero touchdowns, Brady was handed his 5th super bowl MVP. 

There is no side of this game that did not make me physically ill. 

This was such a miserable NFL season. COVID played a big part, but the issues that have slowly, systematically been draining my love for the NFL out of me for at least the last 10 years really reached their nadir. 

It's really become professional wrestling. I can no longer trust that games, that even championships, are being decided on the field. This whole season has reeked of manipulation right from the start. Even a few Vikings games were ruined by blatantly biased officiating. And then we get this absolute fraud of a postseason. The NFC title game was rigged. The super bowl was rigged. All in the service of the storyline the NFL wanted.

The NFL product has devolved in the Goodell era. It used to be about teams. There have always been star players. There have always been star quarterbacks. But the individual did not overshadow the team accomplishments. That's gone. Now it is a league entirely built around marketing only the quarterbacks, and literally changing rules to suit the stars (defense has been legislated out of the game, unless it too can be used to service certain QBs). And yes, when all else fails simply rigging calls and games to favor their preferred guys. And as we learned emphatically these last few weeks, the NFL favors Brady above all else. At this point they should just make it official and change the NFL logo to a picture of Tom Brady's face.

I loathe what the NFL has become. It's no longer a sport. It's no longer about the competition or the drama or the strategy. It's just a bunch of manufactured storylines  And in this COVID year where ratings were down and revenue was way down, we saw this was sent into overdrive. And the NFL milked this Brady to Tampa story for all it was worth.

The genie can't be put back in the bottle on this. Eventually Brady will retire, and I won't have to see his smug MAGAt face anymore. But the damage is unfixable. My NFL fandom is really gone. It is.

I love the Vikings. They are my favorite team in any sport, and have been since basically the early 90s. But man I almost wish at this point that I could just not follow the NFL anymore.

It may just be the heat of the moment getting to me, but I don't think I will be watching any non-Vikings NFL content again for a long time. I simply cannot do this anymore. I can no longer support a league that I cannot trust.

February 7th, 2021. The day my NFL fandom was laid to rest.