As painful as it is to realize, it’s all over kids. With the Seattle Seahawks winning their franchise’s second Super Bowl this past Sunday, another NFL season has come and gone. Time to take off those jerseys, tuck away the foam fingers, and shed the requisite tears before we renew that Pro Football Focus mock draft simulator subscription and begin preparations for the 2026 season. There’s only a handful of months left before the NBA and NHL follow suit and we’re left with only the dry desert of baseball and FIFA sports viewing.
Let’s face it. This year’s season finale, at least footballwise, ended with a fizzle instead of a bang. The Hawks’ 29-13 victory over the New England Patriots was a snoozer if ever there was one. It was a full minute and a half into the fourth quarter before the game’s first touchdown. Seattle had settled for four straight field goals before this season’s favorite redemption story, Sam Darnold, finally found tight end AJ Barner in the endzone, putting the Blue and Neon Greens ahead 19-0. New England’s porous O-line had quarterback Drake Maye under pressure all game. Through three quarters, Seattle’s monstrous front had accumulated four sacks, three more than the Patriots had first downs. With the Boys from Baahstin managing just 78 yards of offense through that span, it looked like we were headed toward the first-ever shutout in the NFL’s championship game.
Maye would find his footing late, amassing 235 yards in the fourth, a Super Bowl record for QB production in a single quarter, along with two touchdowns. But the rally was too late. A pick six caused by another Seattle sack put the Seahawks beyond New England’s reach and ultimately sent blue and green confetti into the air at Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium. Former first-round bust Darnold completed the storybook redemption arc and former Cowboy Demarcus Lawrence was proven right in his claim that he couldn’t win a Super Bowl in Dallas by hoisting his first Lombardi just one year after leaving (or not being retained by) the Silver and Blue Circus.
The storylines of the game were far more intriguing than the game itself. Even considering the interesting narratives, it was an altogether forgettable matchup. Even the commercials collectively had an unremarkable offering. The ad trends of the past, like the ever-popular bizarre and surrealist gimmick, or last year’s general hard lean toward folksy conservativism, have been wholly replaced by poorly CGI de-aged celebrities and a shameless bid for AI acceptance. Thankfully, the five-hour borefest was broken up by the one genuinely remarkable aspect of the entire evening: that of international superstar Bad Bunny’s halftime performance.
Despite being the most listened-to musical artist on Planet Earth prior to his halftime show, I had never heard a Bad Bunny song. And even now, after the 15-minute performance, I don’t think I would have any better chance of picking his music out from a collection of random reggaetón artists than my 10-year-old would of picking out Coltrane from a playlist of fellow ’60s hard-bop saxophonists. I will say, though, despite the music rather than because of it, I will remember his performance forever and rank it among the very best in the history of America’s perennially most-viewed television broadcast.
Based on Monday morning’s doomscrolling, I am aware that some percentage of readers are likely not going to share my opinion of Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio’s ambitious celebration of love, unity, and Latin American culture, and you’re entitled to that opinion, shallow and unnuanced as it may be. You, of course, have the forum of the driver’s seat of your $60,000 F-150 Super Cab to whine into a front-facing camera to your 85 Facebook followers about the your narrow criteria for America’s biggest television stage. And I — as inexplicable as it might be to you and, frankly, to me also — have this one to explain to you why you are wrong.
The fact that so many apparently have such strong feelings about whether a Puerto Rican who sings in Spanish is appropriately representative of America or American culture and therefore deserving of a coveted Super Bowl halftime performance is exactly what made Bad Bunny’s performance so profound. The MAGA information silo, as is its mandate, whipped its constituents into a frenzy of manufactured outrage over the NFL’s selection of the Latin popstar. “He wears dresses!” “His dance moves are so sexual!” “He said that bad thing about ICE at the Grammys!” “He doesn’t even sing in English!!!”
Bad Bunny was sold to the Fox News heads as alien and divisive.
Instead, what audiences across the world were treated to was a beautifully creative expression of a different idea of Americanism than the one the culture-war instigators on the right want the concept defined as. One that includes every country in the hemisphere, North, South, and Central America. One that speaks to our commonalities rather than our differences. In front of a giant message on the Jumbotron that read, “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE,” Mr. Bunny delivered a sermon on unity and shared humanity that spreads from the arctic reaches of Canada to the frosty tip of Chile. And he delivered it with joy, charisma, and fun. Proving that ultimately the real reason the Stephen Miller stans got their undergarments in a twist about Bunny’s selection is not that he’s “not American” but because he’s not white.
So, suck it, haters. Benito’s display of unfiltered and unqualified love and his unafraid proclamation, “Together, we are America,” was really the only thing worth watching on Sunday.
