One Super Bowl record goes to the top of the list. No spoilers.

 

Every modern sports fan has a back up plan, as in DVR back up. Especially on Super Bowl Sunday.

At least that’s the plan.

Since every commercial isn’t Super Bowl grade, or even close when you can actually figure out what they’re selling, the back up includes fast forward.

It worked for Clemson vs Alabama. Great game, great suspense, and Exhibit-A for hyper-violent football.

Women and children came away frightened. Men developed sympathy pains.

But which player in the last, biggest, game of the year, maybe the last game of their life, shows concern for player safety? Polite argument includes sportsmanship, the game showed little.

The College Football Championship Game included either new rules for wringing necks and popping chins, or a blind eye.

My fan group was amped up the whole game. They grew more amped when the DVR version ended two minutes before a game that came down to a last second score. Literally. Last. Second.

We saw it on ESPN replay. I got roasted and promised to do better.

My first challenge came with Green Bay vs Dallas, the Cowboys’ play-off step to their first Super Bowl appearance since they retired Troy Aikman.

Decided late by kickers, my DVR ruined it by stopping early again. And I got blamed. Again.

My wife turned against sports just as she made time in her all-Britain all-day OPB cavalcade.

My fan group threatened to boycott.

To fix things I recorded an entire week of Fox12 and blocked OPB.

If I discover some scheduled Sherlock show killed this game, I’ll go Benedict Cumberbatch on something and it won’t be good.

I needed a Super Bowl record for grabbing the whole game.

Early on it looked we’d be getting to know Matt Ryan, the new Peyton.

He showed the poise, the perfection, while Tom Brady showed how to get his ass kicked over and over until he looked like needed a Jimmy Garoppolo breather.

But he stayed in, took the pounding. He looked like a concussion candidate with mistakes that left the Patriots down 28-3. Dropped passes, bad passes, lost connections.

Who wasn’t seeing him take a knee? Who would have blamed him? He was as done as done gets.

Then he showed what separates NFL guys from the rest of us.

Young, fast, Atlanta swooped in on him from all angles, including the nightmare of the unseen hit in the back.

They were feeling it, the lead, the ring, the cities’ second championship. Big steps, hopping over downed players, daring New England to deny them their moment. Too soon.

You know how it ended.

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Finally, the Brady/Goodell handshake.

Like most men past forty, we judge handshakes based on the hands we’ve shaken.

First, it’s not a shake. It’s a grip. Maybe give it a few pumps. There’s no shaking in a handshake.

They come in every variety, these handshakes, but no one has seen one like the Brady/Goodell, or what they hoped to see.

Every man past thirty is an expert in handshake analysis. We can tell friendly, aggressive, dutiful, weak, limp, lame, flaccid, floppy, sloppy, and wet.

There’s Tom Brady squared up, an icon of manhood, a role model for every non-triple threat quarterback in the world, after his biggest win.

And there’s Roger Goodell. He turned to leave but forgot his hand, the one Tom hung onto a little extra.

That was enough, the seed of doubt that screams, “He’s not letting go. I can’t pretend I’m late to meet someone. I knew he’d try this. Security!”

But like Brady’s second half Super Bowl record, his timing was perfect. He let go just before Goodell’s bowels, saving both another awkward moment.

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What’s the difference between an artist and wind up doll?

Lady GaGa. Or Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta as we call her around the house.

One part Barbra Streisand, one part Bette Midler, one part Tina Turner, one part Circ du Soleil, Gaga showed her true colors in a Super Bowl record halftime.

Who else could croon American folk treasures and recite part of the Pledge of Allegiance from the top of the world in Houston, then bungee jump out of the screen?

Not Madonna.

GaGa shows an attitude of getting her act down from hours of work, writing, choreography.

Like so many others she steals her best stuff. From herself.