Seattle Seahawks: Super Bowl 49 Being Voted Greatest Game is Salt in Wounds

By Andrew C. Fisher | Apr 9, 2015

Many young NFL fans have no idea how bad Super Bowls used to be. After all of the great matchups over the past eight years it’s easy to forget that the NFL’s biggest game was often a one-sided affair in years past.

With the exception of the Super Bowl XLVIII, a blowout that few saw coming, the NFL has been on an incredible hot streak of fantastic championship matchups. You have to go back all the way to SB XLI between the Colts and Bears to find the last lukewarm game. From 2000 to present day the games have been good-to-great for the most part.

That brings us to Super Bowl XLIX, no doubt a classic affair. It was far from a blowout and one of the best in league history. But now it’s actually earned the honor of “Greatest Game of All Time” from NFL.com.

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I get it. The heart-stopping finish and drama should earn it a spot on any top game countdown from here on out. You can’t have a much closer game than the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots did.

But the greatest game in league history? Really?

It seems there’s definitely some most recent game bias at play here. Just two months removed from the contest it’s easy to be lazy and nominate it for GOAT. But when you get down to the heart and soul of SB XLIX, it’s a game that will ultimately be remembered for a bad play call.

Sure, the back-and-forth action was unbelievable. It was the proverbial heavyweight fight with both sides exchange blows as the game wound on. But as great as the game was, no doubt an all-timer, it’s hard to give it the title when a blunder essentially decided the outcome.

Vote it No. 1 for craziest finish of all time. I’ll buy that. But to me it gets bumped out of the top spot for GOAT because of how the finish went down. It’s not just because it was a jaw-dropping ending, it’s because of why your jaw hit the floor — disbelief over a play call.

I highly doubt there are any members of the Seahawks who will consider this GOAT honor from NFL.com as any sort of consolation prize (it’s really more salt in the wounds). Yeah it’s great they played in the best game of all time, but they were the losing team in that battle. They were the losing team because they decided to call a pass on second and goal instead of handing the ball off to the best power running back in football.

No team wants to be remembered for something like that.

It’s like being ahead of the pack in a hurdles race and tripping on the last hurdle as the finish line approaches. There is no one to blame except yourself for what happened.

As far as what game should really be No. 1? Give it a few years. Super Bowl XLIII between the Steelers and Cardinals will take back its rightful place at the top.

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