Super Bowl XLVII

I wrote in my Super Bowl XLVII half time analysis:

"...another score early for the Ravens and it might be all over. That said, San Francisco have a habit of coming back. Tough road, this one - and it'll be the biggest Super Bowl comeback. So Kaepernick and company are going to really earn the Lombardi Trophy if they can get it. Baltimore need to keep playing. The 49ers can kill you with big plays..."

And boy, was I right on nearly every count! As far as wild finishes go, Super Bowl XLVII had everything you could imagine and more. If this was the first ever NFL game you watched, regardless of whether you yet understand the rules or the game's nuances, it doesn't get much more dramatic than that last thirty minutes of football to decide the 47th National Football League Champion.

First, it was Jacoby Jones breaking an NFL record for the longest play in history with his 109-yard kickoff return touchdown to begin the third - it was later adjusted to 108 yards, tying the previous best mark - then a crazy power outage in the Mercedes Benz Superdome that stopped the game for more than thirty minutes (and probably helped the 49ers compose themselves in the face of an onslaught), followed by a furious San Francisco comeback that was just - only just - quelled in a desperate fourth-and-goal play with less than two minutes left to play...and potentially there was a holding call missed on that game-deciding play.

In hindsight, perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised. The 49ers have made a habit of breathtaking last-minute comebacks this year, and they've bounced back from adversity throughout the playoffs. It was Kaepernick's early pick-6 against Green Bay and the red hot Matt Ryan/Julio Jones combo against Atlanta, and the Niners always seemed to be able to come back. Perhaps, if the call had gone differently - a flag bringing about a fresh set of downs inside the 2-minute warning rather than a no-call that seemed to thoroughly confuse Phil Simms in the CBS booth - San Francisco might've gone 3-3. 

Alas, it was not to be and Joe Flacco, whose postseason has been as historical as it's been electrifying, led Baltimore to it's second ever Super Bowl win, Ray Lewis, the oft-discussed and rather controversial linebacker for the Ravens gets his fairytale ending - deserved or otherwise is wide-open for debate, as wide open as Jacoby Jones was on his first half TD grab off the Flacco bomb - in the Battle of the Harbaugh Brothers. All signs indicated a pretty brilliant Super Bowl, and this game certainly didn't disappoint.

Congratulations, Baltimore. Roll on 2013!