The Super Bowl’s ending was great, but Tony Romo didn’t stick the landing

Outside of the budding romance of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, no one seemed to garner as much attention leading up to the Super Bowl as CBS announcer Tony Romo.

That intensified as the game shifted from a mistake-prone, low-scoring snoozefest into one of the most thrilling Super Bowls played, with the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the San Francisco 49ers, 25-22, in just the second overtime game in Super Bowl history.

Romo was on point during most of the game, despite the hang-wringing over social media criticism and a perceived step back in his seventh season in the booth alongside Jim Nantz. Romo toned down his sometimes-manic energy to deliver solid analysis, even if the action on the field was lacking.

“I think Tony Romo has been freaking excellent tonight. Totally concentrating on football. And giving us something great on every possession,” ESPN college basketball analyst Fran Fraschilla noted on social media.

Romo and Nantz were certainly helped by a top-notch production led by lead producer Jim Rikhoff and veteran director Mike Arnold. They didn’t get to use their upright-mounted “doink camera,” but they got a fantastic look at a 49ers’ trick play on the game’s first touchdown, which featured a backward pass from quarterback Brock Purdy to wide receiver Jauan Jennings, who then tossed it back across the field to running back Christian McCaffrey.

Romo also managed to remain loose and have a bit of fun, one of his best qualities as an announcer. At one point he even sung a few words to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” as the broadcast headed into a commercial break. That’s his strength — as CBS Sports president Sean McManus explained on Sirius XM before the game, Romo is “not your meat-and-potatoes analyst. He’s more of a fan. He gets excited.”

That’s not to say the broadcast was perfect. In the first quarter, there was a tense moment where Kelce angrily pushed Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, but both Nantz and Romo quickly moved on. After the game, Kelce and Reid downplayed the incident, with the All-Pro tight end telling ESPN, “I’m going to keep that between us unless my mic’d up tells the world, but I was just telling him how much I love him.”

There was also that 49ers trick play. During the halftime show, CBS analyst Boomer Esiason claimed 49ers center Jake Brendel was illegally downfield on McCaffrey’s touchdown, a penalty that would have negated the play. But neither Nantz nor Romo mentioned it, and the broadcast didn’t examine if Esiason’s claim was accurate. There was also almost no talk of either defense in the first half, something Romo even acknowledged heading into the third quarter.

“We haven’t talked about it a ton, but [the 49ers] were playing what looks like zone, and they were playing man,” Romo said.

During overtime, Romo didn’t appear to be up on the NFL’s playoff overtime rules, mistakingly saying a touchdown by the 49ers on the opening drive would have won the game. The NFL updated its rules before the season to allow both teams to have at least one possession, even if the team that receives the ball first scores a touchdown on the opening drive.

“Tony Romo doesn’t know that the Chiefs would get the ball even if [San Francisco] scored a TD there,” noted Sports Illustrated columnist and podcast host Jimmy Traina. “That’s not good.”

Later, with time ticking away and Chiefs driving toward what ended up being a game-winning touchdown, Nantz and Romo were slow to explain that Kansas City would still have the ball if time ran out and the game went into a second overtime. Romo waited until there were fewer than 30 seconds remaining to explain why Reid and the Chiefs didn’t need to use timeouts to stop the clock.

“I can only feel the number of people out there saying, ‘What’s going on?’” Romo said head of the game’s final play.

Normally during big moments, announcers remain silent and let the images and crowd noise do the talking. But after Mecole Hardman’s game-winning touchdown, and Nantz’s powerfully simple, “It’s there! Hardman! Jackpot, Kansas City!” Romo filled the broadcast with analysis of the play and praise for Patrick Mahomes. None of what Romo said was wrong — it just felt misplaced during the most-important moment of the game.

“That was a classic Romo game. Classic in the sense that Romo was both his best and worst self,” wrote The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis. “This is why Romo is such an interesting announcer and such an aggravating one.”

» READ MORE: Super Bowl LVIII showed again that Andy Reid is an all-time great coach. How much better can he get?

Thanks to their historic late-season collapse, the Eagles missed out on a shot at a rematch against the Chiefs. But the Birds did make it into the broadcast, thanks to Google.

YouTube TV aired a commercial promoting its NFL Sunday Ticket package that featured the Eagles and the league’s other bird-themed teams migrating during the offseason.

“Each year they must follow the path of migration, marking the season’s end,” a bird watcher says as he follows a flock of Eagles players led by running back D’Andre Swift. “It is at this time we must say goodbye to watching these majestic creatures live.”

Baltimore Ravens tight end Mark Andrews and Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Tyler Lockett also appeared in the ad.

There were some other Philly connections scattered among the commercials, though we weren’t blessed with another Four Season Total Landscaping spot. Abbott Elementary creator and star Quinta Brunson made her Super Bowl debut in an otherwise unmemorable spot for TurboTax directed by Taika Waititi.

Rocky star Carl Weathers, who died last week, had filmed a part in a FanDuel ad prior to his death. Rather than air the commercial as filmed, the company made last-minute adjustments to pay homage to the late actor, who had portrayed Rob Gronkowski’s Apollo Creed-type coach.