Did I watch the Super Bowl last night?

I did see Jacoby Jones run for 108 and a score last night though. 

Late last week, I wrote for another blog I like to contribute to that I was tuning out the pregame coverage of the Super Bowl. I did until Sunday, when I had CBS' Super Bowl coverage on to serve as background noise. Pass out all of the pizza you want, Boomer Esiason, I don't care.

As I watched, I felt the same feelings I feel after every Super Bowl, no matter the teams, the location, the broadcasting network or the champion.

It's over already?

And even more than in a regular year: What the hell did I just watch?

The Game, as it likes to be called, always feels fragmented. Maybe it's just me but I can't process the Super Bowl like I can Lions vs. Vikings in Week 6 or even Patriots vs. Ravens in the AFC title game. It is the longest game of the year but each possession feels disconnected. There's a reason why the the 32 minutes felt so different from the final 28 minutes and that wasn't just because of a freak power outage. We've seen it before where the game's pace changes at any moment. (Super Bowl XXXVIII comes to mind.)

Watching the game, you focus on the action and the television much more differently than you do for any other game or sporting event in the year. I'm watching the commercials a lot closer than I would for a regular game because they're supposed to be funny or heartfelt and there were a few of both in Super Bowl XLVII. At the same time, there's people at the party to talk to, snacks to munch on, beer to drink. Everyone is making jokes on Twitter and I'll be damned if I'm not going to keep pace. Plus, Beyonce. How am I supposed to keep enough attention on the game?

The answer is you can't. The Super Bowl is about distracted football.

I would consider myself as a avid follower of football and an average fan. Unless my favorite team is playing in the championship (in which case I would be an absolute train wreck to be around), I'm not going to catch every play and most of them don't matter. If you see the touchdowns, that's good enough.

The Super Bowl feels different because it is different. Alicia Keys doesn't do a three-minute rendition of the National Anthem for a regular season game between the Bengals and Raiders. A massive party  doesn't gather for every single Sunday Night Football game unless you're a big Al Michaels fan. I would be foolish to think that the Super Bowl would be watched in the same way as the regular season.

It's Super Sunday, remember?

Now, it's not like the game is now gone forever. The highlights are playing on a 24-hour loop on numerous networks and the coverage is breathless. If I missed the commercial of the night, I can go to one of the many online platforms that has them all waiting.

I didn't really have a rooting interest in the game. Ravens, Niners ... either way, I would have lived with the outcome (And I have because I'm writing this post, see?). But, we can all basically agree that the game itself is a spectacle and one that draws all sorts of football followers, fanatical or not.

While I may have missed some of the game, I didn't miss the Super Bowl.