Congratulations to the Ravens and Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco, though RamView's vote was for Jacoby Jones, who made two of the game's biggest plays, catching one of Flacco's 3 TD passes for 56 yards and returning the second-half kickoff 108 yards to give Baltimore that 28-6 lead right before the power outage. The power outage should give the NFL a good excuse to maybe quit having almost every other Super Bowl in New Orleans, but probably won't.
Jerome Boger and company didn't completely butcher the game, though it could have been called better. I thought Lamichael James' helmet was grabbed on his 2nd quarter fumble. A flag could easily have been thrown either direction on the 49ers' final 4th-and-goal play. My gut says it should have been a call on Jimmy Smith, but a no-call was probably the best way to go. Jim Harbaugh agrees with my gut. But watch Smith on the ground in the end zone on the replay; he's pleading for a call on Crabtree. Crabtree gave as good as he got on the play. Several brutal holds were unflagged, too, including one in the end zone, but that was the play where Baltimore was taking the intentional safety anyway.
I always like to address next year's needs for the teams in my postseason recaps; these two teams obviously don't need a lot. The 49ers need a better pass rush than they got in the playoffs. The Smith "brothers" were rarely a factor, but, of course, Justin has been injured. They only got 12 sacks this season that weren't from Aldon Smith or Ahmad Brooks. I don't know, maybe that's a 3-4 quirk, but I'd say they need to develop a deeper pass rush rotation and get younger and stronger for the future at DE anyway, as Justin will be 34 next season.
Then again, the Ravens just won the Super Bowl and didn't even have a 10-sack defensive player; Paul Kruger was their leader with 9. Ray Lewis' retirement leaves them needing a LB. Matt Birk's retirement leaves them needing a center. Ed Reed, Bryant McKinnie and Anquan Boldin aren't spring chickens, either. And Joe Flacco just guaranteed himself a lot of their scarce salary cap space. Good thing for them Ozzie Newsome is running the show.
I was generally happy with CBS' broadcast of the game. Steve Tasker did a fine job picking up for everybody during the power outage while he had CBS' only working mike. I agreed with every point Shannon Sharpe made before, during and after the game - his analysis has been superb this year - but one. That's when he said that nobody has played the 49ers as physical this year as the Ravens have. No, the Rams did, twice.
And the 49ers didn't beat them, either.
USA Today AdMeter says this year's commercial winner was the intensely schmaltzy Budweiser Clydesdale ad. I did think this year's ads were big improvements over the last several years'. Quick reactions:
- Dodge Ram "it takes a farmer" spot: Hell yeah.
- Most entertaining: Oreo library riot.
- My favorite: Leon Sandcastle. Draftniks had to have loved every second of that.
- Bar Rafaeli making out with tech dude: Gross. And I'm a tech dude.
- Doritos dad in drag spot: complete waste of $5 million. Stupidest ad of the night.
- Close second: Beck's Sapphire with the red jewel on the bottle. Sapphires are BLUE!
- I had no idea a Lincoln could get 45 mpg or a Mercedes could be bought for less than $30K, so those were effective commercials. But where the hell was the Kate Upton ad? Being in the "sell your soul" ad for like two seconds doesn't count. Guess I got fooled by a trailer or something.
RamView picked the wrong horse to win, but got the over and the Ravens on the cover, so happy hypothetical gambling night. For the postseason: 7-4SU, 8-3ATS, 7-4O/U. I'll happily take that.
OK, enough nonsense. I have a Senior Bowl report to write still.
Corrections: Matt Birk is not definitely retiring at this point. He was interviewed on ESPN Radio Monday morning and said he hasn't made a decision one way or the other. I probably was thinking of Jeff Saturday, who is retiring. Also, the 49ers are likelier to look for a corner in the draft than a d-lineman.
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