Eleven years ago, we had my nightmare Super Bowl. And we have the same matchup this year. It’s not as bad this time, but I still don’t like it. I have to decide who to root for in the playoffs each year since the Jets haven’t been in the playoffs since before my eighth grade students were born. So I have a system. The first thing to look at is Notre Dame players on each team. This year the Bears had four, the Panthers had three, and the Broncos, Texans, and Seahawks had two. But there are disqualifying factors. If your quarterback went to USC or Michigan, I can’t root for you (Bears and Seahawks). If your coach is Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, or Jim Harbaugh, I can’t root for you. If you’re the Patriots, I can’t root for you. So this year I was rooting for the Panthers, but I didn’t think they had much of a chance. So my ideal realistic Super Bowl was the Broncos (Mike McGlinchey and Sam Mustipher) against the Rams (Kyren Williams). And we were two results away from that happening. Instead we got Sam Darnold against the Patriots. It’s not as bad as Pete Carroll against Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, but I don’t like it. Rooting for Sam Darnold isn’t as bad as rooting for Pete Carroll (we beat USC 49-14 and intercepted Sam Darnold once and sacked him four times the last time we played him). So I’ll be rooting for Julian Love and Rylie Mills. The Patriots might not have the cheaters anymore, but they’re still the Patriots and they don’t have any Notre Dame players. So go Seahawks.
Speaking of cheaters, let’s talk about Bill Belichick. John asked me if I thought he should have been voted into the Hall of Fame. And the answer is of course not. All of his accomplishments with the Patriots are tainted by the cheating. Maybe he won some championships without cheating, but much like the steroids guys in baseball, it’s all tainted. He received the largest fine possible under league rules for Spygate. The Patriots were also involved in the Deflategate scandal. It’s reasonable to suspect that they were just constantly cheating. Even if they weren’t, the Hall of Fame isn’t just about counting wins, championships, hits, or home runs or whatever. It’s an honor. And you don’t deserve that honor if you’ve dishonored the game by cheating or gambling. Even though Pete Rose, Barroid, and Roger Clemens would have been Hall of Famers without the gambling or the cheating, they did those things and not getting into the Hall of Fame is a perfectly reasonable consequence. And what about the non-Patriots years when I’ll assume that Belichick/his team/his quarterback weren’t cheating? He went 36-44 as the head coach of the Browns (insert joke about how a .450 winning percentage with the Browns is actually an accomplishment) and he went 4-8 in his first year as the head coach at North Carolina. He’ll probably get in the Hall of Fame at some point, but I certainly wouldn’t vote for him.
John also asked me about what the right number of voters is for the Hall of Fame or awards. It’s 50 people for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, over 400 for the Baseball Hall of Fame, and over 1000 for the Heisman. I don’t have a good answer for that question, but things should be changed somehow. I think if you look at the numbers, some positions are clearly underrepresented in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The Baseball Hall of Fame just let in two Dodgers that I had absolutely no connection to and a cheater. In fairness, Jeff Kent and Andruw Jones are not going in for what they did as Dodgers, but they’re players that I just don’t care about. Jeff Kent put up pretty good numbers with the Dodgers at the end of his career and he was on two teams that made the playoffs in his four years with the Dodgers, but I’ll always think of him as a Giant and I can’t remember one moment from his career with the Dodgers. Because he played second base, there’s definitely a case to be made for him being a Hall of Famer based on his numbers (if he was a first baseman or an outfielder, he would definitely not be a Hall of Famer) so I’m okay with him getting in. Andruw Jones, on the other hand, should not be a Hall of Famer. He was amazingly bad in his 75 games with the Dodgers (three home runs, 14 RBIs, .158, .256, .249). A lot of his Hall of Fame case is based on what he did in the field. I don’t remember anything about Jeff Kent with the Dodgers, but I think I remember a fly ball falling between Andruw Jones and Manny Ramirez in left center and the batter getting a triple even though the ball didn’t get to the wall. Andruw Jones might be my least favorite Dodger of all time. No, wait, Josh Reddick is my least favorite Dodger of all time. Andruw Jones might be second. And Carlos Betran is a cheater (in the Josh Reddick way, not the Barroid/Clemens way) so he doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame.
The Baseball Hall of Fame has definitely let some people in that don’t belong, but they generally have done a good job of not letting too many guys in. Sometimes there are cases of guys waiting longer than they should to get in. I always believed Fred McGriff would have gotten in sooner if not for the fact that he was getting compared to a bunch of guys that did steroids and that made his numbers seem less impressive. But getting into the Basketball Hall of Fame is a different story. Basketball Reference has Hall of Fame probabilities. They have Jayson Tatum at 59.61%, Al Hoford at 26.45%, Jaylen Brown at 2.14%, and Jrue Holiday at 1.67%. If Tatum and Brown retired today, they might not get in. And Tatum still hasn’t returned from a major injury. But assuming reasonable health for them for the rest of their careers, they are absolute locks (and they should be if they play a few more years at a high level). You can debate whether or not Al Horford and Jrue Holiday should be in, but they are going to be. Horford has two national championships in college (which counts for the Basketball Hall of Fame), five All Star games, and an NBA championship. He’s getting in. Jrue Holliday has been in two All Star teams, he’s been on six All Defensive teams, he’s been a huge part of two NBA championship teams, and he has two Olympic gold medals. He’s a lock for the Hall of Fame. There are lots of questionable Hall of Famers, but considering some of the people that have gotten in, Horford and Holiday are definitely getting in. If Mitch Richmond, Dino Radja, and Vlade Divac are Hall of Famers, then Al Hoford and Jrue Holiday are definitely getting in (Mitch Richmond, Dino Radja, and Vlade Divac should absolutely not be Hall of Famers, but they’re all in).
As for the Heisman Trophy, it’s now almost always the award for the best quarterback on a good team. I know that quarterback is by far the most important position in football, but we have an award for the best quarterback in college football (the Davey O’Brien award). If the Heisman Trophy was what it should be, then Manti Te’o would have won it in 2012. Unfortunately, when it comes to the problems with the Halls of Fame and the Heisman Trophy, I don’t think they’re getting fixed. I just hope they don’t make the Halls of Fame worse by letting in more people that don’t deserve to be in (especially the steroids guys in baseball).
I have some other random sports thoughts to finish up. I thought the Celtics would be pretty good this year. I thought Jaylen Brown and Derrick White were too good for the Celtics to be bad in the Eastern Conference. Between the two of them and Payton Pritchard and other guys who have been solid to good (Hauser, Queta, Garza, Gonzalez, Walsh, Scheierman, etc.), they have been good, but it didn’t look that way at the beginning of the season. They got off to a very bad start, but they’ve been consistently good since then. And they’re doing it without Jayson Tatum who was like the fourth best player in the world before he got hurt. Jaylen Brown has been having the best season of his career. It will probably be Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who wins the MVP this year. But if he somehow doesn’t end up with enough games played and Jokic doesn’t end up with enough games played, Jaylen Brown would deserve serious consideration for the MVP. I would give it to Jaylen Brown over Luka Doncic a million times out of a million because Luka Doncic doesn’t believe in defense and Brown is a good defensive player. I would also consider Cade Cunningham and Anthony Edwards before Luka Doncic. And Brad Stevens deserves a ton of credit. The Celtics were a second apron team and he got under that by trading Jrue Holiday (a 2024 hero, but he’s getting old and he has a bad contract) and Kristaps Porzingis (also appreciated for what he did in 2024, but he can’t stay healthy between injuries and illnesses). Then during the season he got under the luxury tax by trading Anfernee Simons for Nikola Vucevic and then trading a bunch of guys who don’t play (but I will always fondly remember Xavier Tillman’s performance in Game 3 of the 2024 NBA Finals). Because of the stupid collective bargaining agreement, these moves were necessary. Being over the second apron is a nightmare. Getting under the first apron and the luxury tax will help put them in a position to compete for their next NBA championship as soon as possible. And Brad Stevens got under the luxury tax without trading Derrick White, Payton Pritchard, or Sam Hauser and the Celtics still have a good team. If Jayson Tatum comes back and plays well (he doesn’t have to be anywhere close to fourth best player in the world Jayson Tatum), they could get to the NBA Finals this year. I wouldn’t bet on it, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened. I think they could beat anybody in the East. Will they win three straight series against teams in the East? Probably not, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened.
Once we get done with the Super Bowl, the focus shifts to the Winter Olympics. I was thinking about why I love Olympic curling so much. It’s because the Olympics are the pinnacle of curling. Nothing would top winning a gold medal in the Winter Olympics when it comes to curling. But for other sports, the Olympics is not the pinnacle. I think things would have been different in 1980 if I had been alive for it, but now I would rather have the Rangers win the Stanley Cup than have the US win the gold medal in hockey (but I guess the US has a better chance to win the gold medal this year than the 0% chance the Rangers have of winning the Stanley Cup this year). As for the summer Olympics, basketball is a little bit different because the US has to win the gold medal or it’s a complete failure. But baseball is kind of like hockey when it comes to the Olympics. Give me the Dodgers winning the World Series any day over the US winning the gold medal in the Olympics (or winning the World Baseball Classic this year). But I am looking forward to watching the Winter Olympics. Besides curling, my favorite event is short track. Those races can get crazy. The Winter Olympics really helps bridge the gap between the Super Bowl and when college basketball starts to matter. But I renew my call for more sports in the Winter Olympics (the Summer Olympics have a lot more than the Winter Olympics). Yukigassen would be a good addition.
And I’ll go back to football with some thoughts on the aesthetics of the Super Bowl. First of all, we’re getting a bad uniform matchup. But the Seahawks against anybody is a bad uniform matchup because they might have the worst uniforms in the NFL. Their throwback uniforms are so much better. They need to go back to them. The Patriots are close to having pretty good uniforms. They should get rid of the silver and the Flying Elvis and just be red, white, and blue with Pat Patriot as the logo. I would keep the blue jersey as the home jersey instead of going back to the red because the British wore red coats. The Patriots should wear blue at home. And for both teams and for the NFL in general, I lament what has happened to socks in the NFL over the last 10 years.
And lastly, the need to fix Super Bowl logos and the field. The biggest thing with the field is the end zones. The team names should be centered. They’re going to have the team logo on the left side and the team name not centered. They used to do the conference logo on the left and the NFL logo on the right with the team name centered in between them. I would definitely bring back the conference logo on one side. The other side could be the team logo or helmet or the NFL logo (I don’t really care which one) with the team name in the middle. And it’s been 16 years of bad Super Bowl logos. Super Bowl XLV to LV were absolutely terrible. The last five have been better, but they’re still not close to being as good as what we got before Super Bowl XLV. I don’t get it at all. It’s like when the NCAA Tournament had every game in the first four rounds played on the same floor. How is that visually appealing? Much like Super Bowl logos, the NCAA Tournament has improved that a little bit, but they would still be so much better if they just let the games be played on the home court. The NFL needs to bring back creative Super Bowl logos. So I used Google Gemini to come up with logos for this Super Bowl that are more along the lines of the pre-Super Bowl XLV logos. Here are my favorites:
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| I’m giving this one the gold medal of all the logos I got Gemini to make. I like the simplicity (a lot of the logos it made were way too complicated and although they were better than what we’ve gotten for the last 16 years, they didn’t seem like the pre-Super Bowl XLV logos). It’s got a nod to the Bay Area with the bridge and it’s very patriotic for 250 years of the United States. |
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| This one gets the silver. It’s a little clunky in the middle with that shield. Maybe get rid of the shield and jazz up the Super Bowl LX with like some kind of patriotic lettering (like stars in the letters or something) and I think this one would be really good. |
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| I’ll give this one the bronze. I like the Bay Area aspects of this one and it’s patriotic. I think I would change the gold buildings in the background to red to go with the blue background and then change all the silver to gold since the game is being played in the Golden State. |
