It’s officially baseball season! I think that is my first thought every year when the Super Bowl ends. Still, despite the apathy I expressed for this year’s big game two weeks ago, this one turned out okay, no?

Early in the game, it looked as though it could be a rout, which is the last thing a fan like myself, with no invested interest in the game, wants. But it went down to the last possession–and that’s all I can ask for.

Now, in what has become my staple (or at least so I’m told by my friends), I must be a bit of a cynic and point out all the overrated parts of the Super Bowl–because they were copious and obvious this year.

First: a running game. This is less about the Super Bowl and more about the state of football today. The Green Bay Packers just won the Super Bowl with basically no running game, at all. Almost all year, they couldn’t run the ball whatsoever, which can normally be overcome for maybe a game or two, but not for an entire season. Their leading rusher in the Super Bowl, James Starks, was basically unknown prior to the playoffs and wasn’t really a factor in yesterday’s win.

Gone, I suppose, are the days when teams felt the need to control the clock and grind out wins. It’s a quarterback’s league now, as evidenced by Aaron Rodgers’ performance today and throughout the season.

Second: Ben Roethlisberger. I already know I’m going to get some flak for calling Roethlisberger overrated. Yes, he has won two Super Bowls, and yes, his career numbers scale to about those of Tom Brady. I acknowledge both of those facts. Maybe it is his off-putting nature, or his inability to lead the Steelers on a game-winning drive in the final two minutes. Or maybe it is simply the fact that he lacks the “wow” factor, but Big Ben just doesn’t instill confidence in me.

I tweeted before the game that maybe Roethlisberger was the second coming of Stanford legend Jim Plunkett–a two-time Super Bowl champion who will never make the Hall of Fame. It’s not a knock on Plunkett, who may well deserve a spot in Canton, but more a point that winning Super Bowls as a quarterback does not necessarily mean you are great.

Third: Joe Buck. This could probably be widened to all Fox Sports coverage. To be fair, I found Buck less nauseating today than I do when he is paired in the booth with the incredulous Tim McCarver for baseball, but still, for the most watched sporting event ever, fans deserve fewer inane or downright senseless comments. There are plenty of examples of silly statements, but maybe the finest is when Buck was shocked that there was no personal foul called on Brett Swain for a perfectly legal hit he made covering a punt. I wasn’t particularly surprised, and maybe I am being harsh–calling a game is probably very difficult–but CBS, ABC and NBC all consistently do a better job than FOX.

Fourth: The Black Eyed Peas. And the rest of the Super Bowl halftime show, for that matter.

Where do I begin? First off, what the hell were those outfits? Was that a protective helmet on will.i.am’s head? Did they make Fergie wear that weird body armor to make double sure that there wasn’t another “wardrobe malfunction”?

And what about the microphones–you’d think they would make sure they functioned correctly prior to this ultra-hyped show–or maybe it was something wrong with the singers’ voices. I’m no music expert. Lastly, the cameos by Slash and Usher were simply weird. It was as if the promoters were trying to pack a million ideas into ten minutes (which is, I’m sure, exactly what they were trying to do). People thought the conservative halftime shows with performers like The Who and Tom Petty were boring. They were way better than the Black Eyed Peas. (Side note: How strange is it for 50- and 60-year olds to see the word “conservative” describing the performance of a band like The Who?)

Despite these overrated aspects of the day, it was a great game and a great day to be a sports fan.