Patriots 28, Seahawks 24

Pete Carrol explained the decision to call a pass on the play which effectively ended one of the most exciting Superbowls in history by simply saying that sometimes the play you call works and sometimes it doesn't. Now that I've slept on it, I don't blame him or the Seahawks for the play call. It's easy to say this morning that it was a bad call but if the relatively high percentage play had worked and the Seahawks had won their second consecutive NFL title, the decision would either be considered brilliant or, more likely, would not be discussed at all. One of the key elements of play calling is to resist the temptation to do what the defence expects and with the winning touchdown a yard away and Marshawn Lynch in the backfield, a pass would not have been what the Patriot defence was looking for. So, it didn't work and the Patriots won. That's the way it goes.

When the Stanley Cup is won, the NHL Commissioner presents it to the captain of the winning team who then (almost always - unless there's a senior player who isn't the captain and has never won a Cup before) hoists the Cup over his head and skates around the ice before handing it to a team-mate. In the NFL, the Commissioner presents the Vince Lombardi trophy not to a team captain, not to the quarterback, not to the coach or general manager but to the team's owner. Robert Kraft now has another one to add to his display case which already had three. Another thing I like about the Stanley Cup is that there is only one of them (well, apparently there are two in case the one presented is damaged) but every year, a new Vince Lombardi trophy is made and the winning team keeps it. So, there are now 49 of them out there.

As President Obama said yesterday in the kitchen of the White House, the most surprising thing to most fans about the deflated ball controversy was that the individual teams have anything to do with the "preparation" of game balls. I think that it is a virtual certainty that this will end before next season and that game balls will be the exclusive domain of game day officials who will test the balls for inflation pressure and other specifications. The league could also come up with a policy which says that, in colder weather, balls are slightly less inflated. This helps with all aspects of ball handling and would make sense in order to reduce the chances of having games with multiple turnovers. The point is that each team plays with the same balls. I say you can bet on it.

So, the games are done but the NFL off-season will swing into full gear with the college player combine next then free agency, the draft, the schedule release, OTA's and then training camps in late July. My season ticket invoice from the Bills will be arriving in my mailbox shortly. I'm not looking forward to paying it with 78 cent dollars but I will.

Here's another prediction: the Bills will have a Monday night home game in 2015 and it will be against the Dallas Cowboys. As tempting as it will be to sell my tickets on the secondary market and recover some of my currency shortfall and the cost of the two pre-season games, I will most likely go. It will surely be the latest that I will have stayed up since the last night home game in 2012.