Tight Lips the Thespian

Recently a friend and I, quite simultaneously, discovered that each and the other is lately trapped in an odd state of consciousness — odd in that, given as we are captives to the forces of natural law, it stands to reason that we should not be so encumbered. Yet here we are, the two of us locked — notwithstanding (and not coincidentally) along with millions of other woozy souls across the planet — in incredulity, still, over the imponderable strangeness of Super Bowl XLIX; or, in a phrase, by how it happened that a nouveau Big Bang turned the football game, in its last 20 seconds, into an alternative universe.

Why, we remain stupefied to this day (and shall for years to come), did the Seattle Seahawks (reining Super Bowl champs) — finding themselves all of a stretched-out jockstrap removed from the end zone and the win — why did they trade away the battering-ram efficiency of the run (and the game’s best batterer, Marshawn Lynch) for the Icarus risk of letting the football fly? Given a preponderance of precedents in the NFL that point to running, not passing, as the surer way to victory for teams blessed with Hulks who can thrash the ball at will a measly 36 inches to the promised land, how could the Seahawks wind up in the desert?

The most plausible answer: stupidity. (As in, dimwitted play calling.)

However, my friend offers another possibility: The fix was on.

Now, considering how ethically stunted so many people are these days — be it of poor upbringing and/or an acute need for peer acceptance at any cost and/or a honed worldview drowned in apathy — news of a fixed Super Bowl would surprise me no more than news of, say, an international bank giving rich clients illegal tax breaks, or a celebrity acting like an imbecile, or an elected official getting caught in a lie, or, to recommence the sports theme, a Hall of Fame athlete, say, Whorin (aka Warren) Sapp, getting arrested for, say, having propositioned (and possibly also pounded) a Lady of the Night.

And how do those among the moralistic square a conspiracy theory which supposes that the reason Seahawks Coach P. Carroll and his O. boys called “The Pass” was to keep the ball — and thus also the MVP trophy — out of the hands of their All-Pro (but also All-Embarrassing) running back Lynch? Personally I don't believe the speculation; however, if it would turn out to be true, how ironically justified would such a dastardly act suddenly seem considering how its pawn Marshawn ceaselessly patronizes the media (with bumbling and mumbling) and America's youth (with crotch-grabs on national TV) — that is, until a call to speak with the guarantee of a fattened pocketbook might come alone, as, indeed, it has in the form of the latest Progressive Insurance commercial, in which Tight Lips miraculously transforms into a thespian.

It will be high drama to observe Sea-rattled again, starting next fall. Will this broken team be able to repair itself? — will quarterback Russell Wilson, the errant passer, his psyche? Will Mar’yawn continue to give America the silent treatment?

Personally, for the ’Hawks — as for all transgressors — I envision a precipitous decline toward average.