I joined about 110 million in the US and another unknown millions around the world watching Super Bowl XLVI Sunday night. Kick-off started at 1:30 in the morning. A friend came over and we put on some home made burgers and a variety of chips. I set up a projector connected to my laptop and was able to pick up an NBC feed, commercials and everything.
I wasn’t so impressed with the commercials this year. Too many generic car and beer commercials. The best one was probably the dog working out to lose weight, but only because of the Star Wars reference at the end.
The game was exciting to the last play, but not because of fantastic plays. In fact, as much as the game was defined by Manningham’s catch, it will be remembered for the Patriots mistakes. The safety, the poor throws, the lack of a run game, the dropped passes, the out-of-sync defense. And with all that, it came down to one last play, albeit a Hail Mary. Not exactly a high percentage play. As a Bears fan pulling for the Giants, as the ball was in the air I was having flash-backs to the end of the first half of the Chiefs game this year.
But for me the real story of the game started to unfold in the middle of the second quarter when Travis Beckum came out of a cut lame. They immediately reported it as an ACL tear, same as me. The difference is that Beckum was diagnosed within minutes, while I was jerked around for a year, not that I’m bitter or anything. So the New York Football Giants were down a 2nd string tight end, not such a big deal in their scheme, but it lodged itself in my mind. And then, almost exactly two quarters of football and one weird Madonna concert later, Jake Ballard went down in nearly exactly the same way. It hurt to watch, but the sideline diagnosis seemed to be just a sprain… and then they showed him testing it. That was hard to watch.
Both injuries were so similar to mine. No contact, but just changing direction and the knee gives out. I have no idea how Ballard was able to put any weight on his knee to even test it. I guess he was hyped up on adrenalin and probably pain killers, but minutes after my knee buckled I could barely walk let alone try to jog. An ongoing series over at Slate.com during the season talked about the Giants TE troubles, but I have to take exception with some of what the author said about ACL tears. The test he referred to didn’t diagnose me, but an MRI did. (And I know it’s correct because I’ve also had doctors look at the ligament from the inside)
Part of me wants to say something important about injuries and impartial medical examinations, but really, I just want to cringe. I want to get my knee fixed so I can forget about this and get back to Ultimate Frisbee.
As a side note, possibly the coolest thing in the game: Logan Mankins’ Helmet
