I love Pete Carroll.

If, through some miracle, I could suddenly play football (and be 20 years younger), there is no coach who I would more want to play for.

I LOVED his call to go for a touchdown rather than just kick the field goal at the end of the first half last night. I wouldn’t have done the same thing, but I loved it.

But, man, his call to throw on second down with the ball at the one-yard line with 26 seconds to play last night was atrocious. Unforgivable. Never-get-over-able. You get the idea.

It was terrible not just because he had Marshawn Lynch in the backfield, the same dude who had nearly run the ball in on the previous play. But it was also terrible because he had Russell Wilson, who runs the read-option as well as any quarterback in the game, under center. He has two incredible running options, three downs, one time out, and 26 seconds to play with.

And he calls a freaking inside pass into traffic that has an incredibly high risk factor.

I can entertain, for a moment, Carroll’s argument that he wanted to pass against the New England goal-line D to set up the run on third and fourth downs. But if you insist on throwing, throw the ball outside. Throw a corner fade where it’s either a touchdown or an incompletion (baring a terrible throw). DO NOT throw the ball where there are a bunch of bodies and crazy things are more likely to happen.

But still, you run the damn ball. Then you run it again. And then again if the first two tries do not work. New England is going to have their goal-line D in on every play. You have to beat them at some point.

That’s arguably the biggest play in the history of the game. And since I was rooting against the Patriots, it’s a travesty of a play.

As I step back, though, it’s obvious this was the best Super Bowl ever. Well, at least that I can remember. This thing beat any last-second field goal win, the back-and-forth that Pittsburgh and Arizona had, or that St. Louis-Tennesse game. Wild swings of momentum, key injuries, a couple huge missed calls by the refs, Tom Brady making mistakes and then making history, Chris Matthews coming out of nowhere to make three huge catches, Jermaine Kearse making a catch for the ages and (momentarily) assuring a statue will go up of him in downtown Seattle, three dramatic fourth-quarter drives. And then Malcolm Butler, who epitomizes the mythological Patriots way, stepping up to make a massive interception.

It was a heck of a game. The wrong team won, though. And it was Pete Carroll’s fault.

I haven’t read much analysis today but based on my Twitter readings last night, I’m with the consensus that the commercials mostly sucked. Nothing dazzling that I’ll remember years from now. Well, other than that awful Nationwide ad about preventable child deaths. That was pretty terrible.

A few decent ones, but they’ve already slipped my mind. Plenty of bad ones I erased from my memory immediately. The ad wizards need to step up their game.

My girls loved Katy Perry’s halftime show. Her entrance on the gigantic lion, the costume changes, the wacky graphics on the floor, the dancing sharks and beach balls and then singing “Firework” while zooming around the stadium on a strange star contraption. They thought it was all awesome.

I thought it was ok. Visually dazzling, for sure. Perry is not the strongest singer in the world and that was apparent for most of her performance. I was impressed, though, by how well she sang “Firework.” If you had me hovering 20–40 feet above a football field supported by a series of cables, I’m pretty sure my voice would be all jittery. She pulled that song off nicely, even with real fireworks exploding all around her.

I have a hard time understanding Perry. Her songs are all just kind of ok. She certainly can’t compare to contemporaries like Rihanna or Adele, to go in two different directions. Her songs and visuals often seem aimed at kids because of their sheer silliness, yet she sells sex as hard as anyone in the business. It’s an odd combination.