The Sound And Fury

Around my house, we're just about over the Super Debacle. We still have neighbors and friends stopping by to offer their sympathies. My wife suffered her first bout with Big Game Depression. Not even a big slice of chocolate cream pie could fill that void. And still people keep looking to us for an explanation: "What happened?"
I don't know what happened, exactly. I know that very good teams are capable of playing very poorly at the most inopportune moments. When that big light shines down on you and the planet, at least the ones who aren't watching The Puppy Bowl, are staring at you, it's likely that the stress is at such a level that we mere mortals will never fully understand it.
That's why some people fake it. Rather than take any chances, they go with the easiest possible way out. I'm not suggesting that Peyton Manning phoned that one in. On the contrary: if he were just going through the motions it could have been much more ridiculous, and obvious. Like playing a bass that wasn't plugged into anything. And while this provided one member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers more flexibility when it came to lunging about the halftime stage, it raised some questions about just what part of their performance was live, and how much was Memorex.
As it turns out, Anthony Kiedis was giving it away in the sense that he was truly singing. The rest of the Peppers were pretending to play to a track they had already played, and recorded especially for the spectacle that is the Super Bowl. We know this because Mister Flea confessed to the pantomime performance on their website. No shame. No recriminations. No Beyonce-type controversy.  "I would do it all the same way again," Flea writes, with complete resolve.
For his part, Peyton Manning probably wishes that he could have found a way to play to some pre-recorded "Omahas" himself.