It was bound to happen one of these days.
After being the mortal enemy of every member of the Who Dat Nation since issuing down the Bountygate penalties, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell finally did something to make residents of the Big Easy smile: He made sense.
“I fully expect that we will be back here for Super Bowls,” Goodell said Monday morning. “And I hope we will be back. We want to be back.”
Maybe he’s just trying to get on New Orleanians’ good side. Maybe he’s still punch-drunk over the largest Super Bowl audience of all time.
But he probably just wanted to sound like a logical human being for once.
I was in New Orleans all last week. Trust me, the atmosphere was something that will be reciprocated each time the city gets a chance to strut its stuff on a national stage, no matter which two teams are participating.
Goodell and multiple other media outlets praised the Crescent City for the good show it put on for Super Bowl XLVII. One of the greatest party cities in the world hosted the biggest American sporting event and it went off without a hitch — at least until early in the third quarter Sunday night.
The 34-minute power outage that unfortunately made CBS call sideline reporter Steve Tasker into action might make the Baltimore Ravens’ 34-31 victory one of the most memorable Super Bowls ever.
I’m not a big “what if” guy, but if some wind hadn’t been taken out of the Ravens’ sails during the delay, who knows if the 49ers would have gotten back into the game?
Blackout, Beyoncé and the Brothers Harbaugh. What’s not to love?
There’s no way a mysterious power outage should affect whether New Orleans will host another Super Bowl.
Even with all the optimism garnered by a nearly flawless week of festivities, a few naysayers had to rain on New Orleans’ parade.
“Hope New Orleans enjoyed this week. It won’t get another Super Bowl after this,” Yahoo! sports columnist Pat Forde tweeted minutes after the Mercedes-Benz Superdome went dark.
Really, Pat? I know your Twitter profile describes you as a “curmudgeon,” but sometimes you need to think before you tweet.
Not only does it not make sense, it unfairly takes a shot at the inhabitants of New Orleans.
So let me get this straight — it’s their fault something that has never happened during a game housed inside the Superdome went down Sunday night? All the hard work and preparation by thousands of volunteers should be wiped away for a one-in-a-million electrical failure?
Luckily for Forde’s sake, someone else made himself look like even more of a moron: Fox Sports Next columnist Russ Mitchell.
“Maybe now the rest of America will realize that New Orleans still hasn’t come close to recovering from Katrina #SuperBowl,” Mitchell tweeted.
What does that even mean?
A stadium that has undergone numerous renovations since Hurricane Katrina is indicative of how a whole city has recovered from one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history?
Blame Beyoncé’s halftime performance that left Brent Musberger unconscious. Blame Jacoby Jones for taking all the electricity out of the building after his playoff record 108-yard kick return for a touchdown minutes before the lights went out.
Just don’t use New Orleans not being recovered from Katrina as a reason for the blackout.
Guys like Forde and Mitchell can have their opinions, but in the end, their ill-advised comments won’t matter.
The biggest part of the whole aftermath of the Blackout Bowl is that it appears Goodell has New Orleans’ back. And that’s something no New Orleans resident could say a year ago.
Micah Bedard is a 22-year-old history senior from Houma.
Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, left, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell shake hands before the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game between the Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers, Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
