The Pittsburgh Steelers, my favorite NFL team since the days of my youth in the steel city, won the sloppily played and sloppily officiated Super Bowl XL in Detroit Sunday night, beating the Seattle Seahawks 21-10. My elation over the victory was clouded by unease over the spectacle itself. Performances could have been better all around. One extreme example of the mediocrity of this Super Bowl is the poor performance of winning quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, whose quarterback rating wound up in the low 20s. At the game’s conclusion, I puzzled over who possibly could be chosen as MVP, as there were really no standout performances. Hines Ward, who had some fair to middlin’ numbers, got the nod as the stealth MVP. In any case, this was not the most entertaining of Super Bowls, in spite of my team winning. [Read more…]