When it comes to sports, I’m a sentimental fool.
And my eyes were barely dry from watching the Netflix “Miracle” documentary on Saturday night when Super Bowl XL kicked off with a patriotic montage of the big game throughout the years.
It’s been 60 years of great football and national cohesion on that given Sunday.
In it, fans recalled big life moments during the Super Bowl, like a mother giving birth during a game and a veteran hearing Whitney Houston’s iconic national anthem while deployed during Desert Storm. Legendary Jet Joe Namath closed the segment out. Football is indeed “America’s Game.”
On the field, Super Bowl MVPs like Steve Young, Tom Brady, Lynn Swann and the Manning brothers popped out of the “memory room” to cheers. And oddly joined Green Day as they played “American Idiot.”
I must have cried about 15 times before kickoff.
However, all that beautiful nostalgia dissolved into something worse than the stench on the Jersey Turnpike. It was . . . betrayal.
“Jersey guy” Jon Bon Jovi took the field to introduce the, ahem, New England Patriots. We shouldn’t be shocked by the Sayreville, NJ, native’s treason. He has long been desperate to be a part of an NFL ownership and has made it his job to cozy up to Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft.
Given the Patriots’ 21st century dominance, he’s firmly planted himself in Kraft’s sidecar.
A fitting penalty would be stripping the “Bad Medicine” singer’s name off his namesake rest stop on the Garden State Parkway, and renaming it for former “Love Guv” Jim McGreevey, a man who admittedly put in a lot of hours in them.
He was further humiliated by Danny McBride and Keegan-Michael Key’s superior version of “Living on a Prayer” in the State Farm ad.
‘Broadway production’
Speaking of Garden State musicians, Rumson native Charlie Puth’s rendition of the national anthem had little touches of Kenny G. It was indeed stirring.
For a dentist’s office.
Alas, between the Pats and Seahawks showdown, we were presented with an abundance of options at halftime. With the enticing choices of Kid Rock’s Turning Point USA show or Bad Bunny, I was most excited to watch the bottom of my glass.
However, with all of the controversy surrounding the NFL’s choice of the Puerto Rican superstar, I kept on the broadcast because I knew, at least he wasn’t going to be half-assed.
Indeed the show was a visual triumph — but a musical dud.
The gridiron was transformed into a sugarcane field, where Bad Bunny walked through revealing vignettes like a nail salon, a jewelry vendor and old men playing dominoes. It was unlike any other halftime show, which usually feels like an elaborate concert inside a football stadium.
Instead this was a Broadway production transplanted onto turf, and it had a dazzling cinematic effect. You weren’t watching the show from above, you were immersed in this Latin showcase.
NFL’s going global
Still, Bad Bunny, whose government name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, wasn’t a great choice. Not because he sings in Spanish, but because his music is meh.
He got a little assist from Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, but overall the sound was swallowed by the elaborate presentation and the ever-moving set. There was so much to look at, but the music never rose above the sugarcane.
Bad Bunny ended the performance with a roll call of Latin American countries and their representatives holding flags to underscore his Grammy’s anti-ICE speech without being explicit. It felt more like the closing ceremonies at the Pan Am games than the 60th annual pigskin-a-palooza, which is uniquely American.
The U-S-A variety.
I fully understand the NFL’s hyperfocus on expanding its footprint abroad, especially in the Spanish-speaking market.
Choosing the global superstar was a business move looking toward the future.
On the positive side, maybe people picked up a few extra words of Espanol. But next year, let’s get back to something a little less polarizing.
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