So the Los Angeles Rams are your world champions, and yay for Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald, and go (bleep) yourself, Rams owner and horrible person Stan Kroenke. That pretty much sums up the Blob's feeling on the whole business.
It also has a few Thoughts. Because the Blob always has Thoughts.
* That was some inclusive performance by the NFL refs down there at the end, who kept throwing flags until Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp got it right. It not only brought the conspiracy theorists inside the Super Bowl tent ("The NFL's gonna keep giving the Rams chances because it wants the Lombardi Trophy in L.A."), it got the history nerds inside, too ("Hey, it's the 1972 Olympic basketball final all over again! When do the Rams put in Alexander Belov to make the winning basket?")
And just imagine the debates going on all over America ...
BENGALS FAN: Oh, gee, another flag. What a surprise.
RAMS FAN: Quit putting your hands all over our boy Cooper, and they'll stop dropping laundry.
BENGALS FAN: Hey, the Soviets only got three chances in '72. How many they gonna give L.A.?
RAMS FAN: What is this, the noon show at Busch Gardens? They're water-skiin' behind Coop!
BENGALS FAN: Oh, look, the Rams finally scored. The refs must be so relieved.
RAMS FAN: At last! Coop gets to do Coop things without being assaulted!
Rinse and repeat.
* Overheard where I was Sunday night, while watching the Super Bowl halftime show: "The right wing is going to lose its mind on social media over this."
After which the right wing lost its mind on social media, calling the artists "hoodlums" and claiming the halftime show should be banned from television. The usual suspects saying the usual things, and so forth.
Me?
I'm a crotchety 66-year-old white guy who's not into rap. But I thought the halftime show (featuring rap icons Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem) was terrific. Amazing energy, amazing showmanship from an amazing collection of performers. Best halftime show I've seen in awhile, and I saw the best halftime show ever in person -- Prince in the rain in Miami.
But we're a nation of two distinct cultures now, and I find that extremely sad. Our differences -- in perspective, in musical and artistic taste, in social tradition and history -- used to define us as unique and special. Now we see evil and existential threat in those differences, and beat one another over the head with them.
Same as every other country on earth, in other words. So much for American exceptionalism.
* Cooper Kupp deserved his MVP trophy, sealing it with four catches for 39 yards to propel the Rams' winning drive. Without him, that drive doesn't happen. So well done.
But you know what?
This was the rare instance when you could have made a strong case for co-MVPs.
The other one I'd have given to Aaron Donald, who sacked Joe Burrow twice, made four tackles including three solo, and made the game's two biggest stops on back-to-back plays: Stopping Bengals running back Perrine a yard short on third down at midfield as the Bengals were trying to force overtime with a last-second field goal, and then sacking Burrow on fourth down to end it.
In a game whose narrative was largely written by the two defenses, it seems only right a defensive player should have gotten at least a piece of the MVP.
* So which Ram had the best night in L.A.?
You could say it was Donald, tears mingling with sweat on his face as he talked about winning a Super Bowl in his eighth NFL season. You could say it was Odell Beckham Jr., the refugee from the Browns, breaking down in tears when the game ended and the blue-and-yellow confetti rained down. You could say it was Matthew Stafford, winning it all after a dozen years of hard labor in the Lions gulag, or safety Taylor Rapp, who proposed to his girlfriend on the field as the celebration went on around them.
None of them had the night wideout Van Jefferson did, though.
At a little past 10 o'clock Eastern time, he won the Super Bowl.
Two-and-a-half hours later, with Jefferson at her bedside after high-tailing it to the hospital from SoFi Stadium, his wife gave birth to their second child, a son.
Now there's a guy who had himself a night.
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