I'll admit I was hoping for a train wreck if only to get Roger Goodell fired. Instead, it was largely a great game - at least up until the bizarre ending. A few observations, other than the obvious:

• The Seahawks got jobbed on a couple key calls: (1) A late-hit out of bounds on Shane Vereen that was awfully ticky-tack; and (2) a non-PI call after a New England DB tripped Ricardo Lockette on a third down play with the Patriots down three. Had the PI been called, Seattle extends the drive, and the Patriots don't get the ball back immediately down three with 6:52 left in the game.

• I have no idea why I watched the halftime show, but I did. A lot of people in my Twitter timeline liked the visuals and joked about dropping hallucinogens, but I couldn't get past the music. Maybe I'm naive, but I was actually surprised it was that stupid and bad.

• It was amazing the Seahawks were able to drive down the field in 29 seconds at the end of the first half and score a touchdown. Pete Carroll's decision to risk running a play with six seconds left rather than settling for a sure field goal was in keeping with the courageous way he's run the team since he took over. Even though I had money on the Pats, I was glad he made the decision and even that it succeeded - if only to serve as an example to the Mike McCarthys of the world.

• Tom Brady didn't play a perfect game by any means - not only did he throw two picks, but he missed a wide open Julian Edelman on the goal line and held the ball too long a couple times. But engineering a comeback down 10 in the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl against that defense cements his status as one of the two or three greatest quarterbacks of all time. Joe Montana is one of the others, Peyton Manning is not.

• While the game was great, the ending was so random, it left me wondering why anyone should care who officially won or lost the game. Everything was fine until Jermaine Kearse caught a well-defended 33-yard pass that happened to bounce into his lap as he lay on the ground. For God knows what reason, Bill Belichick refused to call a timeout - even after Marshawn Lynch ran the ball down to the one-yard line. With Seattle almost certain to score, the Patriots would still have had 45-odd seconds and only needed a FG to send the game into overtime. But Belichick let Seattle run the clock down to the point where a TD would have ended the game. The Seahawks still had a timeout left, and it was only second down from inside the one. Of course, inexplicably, Pete Carroll called a pass play, rather than pounding the ball in with the unstoppable Lynch, and the rest is history. As a result, it's hard to feel as though the Patriots actually won the game. It's more like the game was undecided before the series of bizarre bounces and terrible decisions, and we'll never really know who should have prevailed. I still won my bets, though.