Zach Anderson

Super Bowl XLII was nothing short of spectacular: some good commercials, some bad and a good ending to an otherwise boring game.

With a 7-3 score until 11:05 remained in the fourth quarter was in the running for being the most boring Super Bowl I have ever watched. That was until Giants quarterback, Eli Manning, completed a five-yard touchdown pass to David Tyree, giving the Giants a 10-7 lead in the fourth quarter.

The Patriots had plans of their own; a Tom Brady six-yard touchdown pass to Randy Moss with 2:42 remaining gave the Patriots the 14-10 lead. We’ve all seen this before; the Patriots score at the end of the game on the way to their 19-0 record and Super Bowl win.

This is when the unexpected happened. On third-and-five, Manning breaks away from Patriots’ defensive end Jarvis Green and two other defenders to avoid the sack; then he proceeds to throw the ball 32 yards downfield, and David Tyree makes a spectacular catch, holding the ball tightly against his helmet as the Patriots’ Rodney Harrison tries to pry it from his grasp.

Four plays later, Plaxico Burress is holding the game-winning touchdown pass that would defeat the Patriots. The 1972 Dolphins can continue to hold their heads high knowing they are the only team to go undefeated and win the Super Bowl.

18-1 just doesn’t mean the same as 19-0. The Giants spoiled New England’s perfect season and won 10 straight road games, including the Super Bowl, on their way to finishing 14-6.

It was the most-watched Super Bowl ever with 97.5 million viewers, beating the previous Super Bowl record of 94.08 million when Dallas defeated Pittsburgh in 1996.

My favorite commercial of the Super Bowl was the Bridgestone Tire ad, which featured a car heading straight for a helpless squirrel who was just eating some lunch in the middle of the road. All of a sudden, the squirrel opened his mouth and screamed, and the commercial proceeded to show a whole bunch of forest animals all screaming.

Even the lady in the car was screaming. Then the car swerves easily, and the squirrel goes about its business. It represented that Bridgestone Tires are good for maneuvering and are reliable.

Budweiser had the top commercial for the 10th straight year. The Budweiser ad featured a Clydesdale who didn’t get picked to be on the Budweiser hitch team and a Dalmatian that trained him. The horse trained to the Rocky theme and won a spot on the hitch team the next year thanks to the dog. They exchanged a high five at the end.

The FedEx Pigeon Carriers commercial featured a business using homing pigeons to deliver mail, and then for the bigger packages, a giant pigeon was brought in. The pigeons went crazy, and one picked up a man’s car and tossed it through the window of the business. Then the manager said politely to the employee, “Let’s switch to FedEx.”

For the halftime show Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers performed four of their classics, including, “American Girl,” “Runnin’ Down A Dream” and “Free Fallin’.” The show didn’t have much flash or fireworks, but it delivered a nice musical performance by an all-time great.