Super Bowl LII featured more offensive yards (1,151) than any other game in NFL historyGETTY IMAGES
The Eagles' 41-33 win over the Patriots in Super Bowl LII "came through to rekindle America’s romance with professional football" after a season "marked with off-field drama, scandal and suspicion," according to Dan Wetzel of YAHOO SPORTS. The "wild shootout" was "wonderfully entertaining." A sport that "too often is weighted to mediocrity, had brilliance across the board" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 2/5). THE MMQB's Albert Breer writes the NFL is "still king," and last night's game "is why." At the end of a season that was "sideways in so many ways," Super Bowl LII "proved as exciting as any ever played." The two teams "combined for more offensive yards (1,151) not just in a Super Bowl, but in any NFL game ever." The game "had it all on a night when the league needed it most." Yesterday was a "reminder of what the NFL can be." That the sport is "capable of producing moments like these explain how the league got to the mountaintop in the first place, and is a sure thing to stay there for the foreseeable future, warts and all" (SI.com, 2/5). CNN.com's Brian Lowry writes after a "difficult, controversial year, the NFL capped its season with a terrific, high-scoring, wildly entertaining game that reminds people why they love football, while sidestepping any peripheral dust-ups" (CNN.com, 2/5). In Tampa, Martin Fennelly writes this "might have been just what the NFL needed after a bad season." Fennelly: "A superb Super Bowl LII to the rescue" (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 2/5).
SO HOT IN HERE: In San Diego, Kevin Acee writes the "coldest site in which a Super Bowl was ever staged thawed in the heat of perhaps the craziest game with the Roman Numerals that was ever played." Week after week, the NFL product is "decried as being increasingly mediocre," but last night's game was a "great show" (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 2/5). In Chicago, David Haugh writes the Super Bowl "morphed into the Arena Bowl, with the offenses engaging in fast-break football." The teams "broke the Super Bowl record for total offense -- in three quarters" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 2/5). In Atlanta, Jeff Schultz writes no one "expected a Big 12 game to break out." These were "two of the NFL’s best scoring defenses during the regular season." But this whole week in Minneapolis "has been a bit odd so maybe more theater of the bizarre should have been expected" (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 2/5). In N.Y., Schwartz & Costello write, "If you enjoy seeing the ball move up and down the field, you loved Super Bowl LII" (N.Y. POST, 2/6).
BUT REALLY THOUGH, WHAT IS A CATCH? In Ft. Worth, Clarence Hill Jr. writes the league has "battled protests and declining ratings, only to get one of the greatest games in history." However, "fittingly, the game was ultimately decided by the controversial catch rule," on Eagles TE Zach Ertz' game-winning touchdown (Ft. Worth STAR-TELEGRAM, 2/5). In Minneapolis, Mark Craig writes this was a season in which "so much time, energy and utter confusion have been spent discussing what is and isn’t a catch." Did the NFL "take the easy way out" yesterday? Did it rule that Eagles RB Corey Clement’s third-quarter TD catch "was indeed a catch just to avoid the general outrage that would have ensued if it had ruled that the ball moved?" Craig: "Based on some of the overturned catches I’ve seen this season, the catch should have been overturned because it was moving slightly" (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 2/5). In N.Y., Pat Leonard writes plenty of people covering the game "agreed that Clement’s slight bobble of the ball meant he hadn’t established possession until his second step and therefore had gotten only one foot in bounds before touching the white line" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 2/5).
CAN'T TOTALLY ELIMINATE VIOLENCE: THE RINGER's Rodger Sherman notes Patriots WR Brandin Cooks spent "several minutes motionless on the ground and was almost immediately ruled out for the rest of the game with a head injury" following a second-quarter hit from Eagles S Malcolm Jenkins. The hit "wasn’t dirty," but it and the subsequent injury "served as a reminder that perfectly legal hits can cause the types of terrifying injuries that the NFL claims it can eliminate from the game, and it happened with the largest audience of the year watching" (THERINGER.com, 2/5).
