Super Bowl 53 Was a Good Game
I didn't think it was boring.
I liked it. It wasn't the most gripping Super Bowl we've ever seen but was either team out of it? No.
There are three types of football games. Offensive shootouts. Defensive strongholds. And blowouts.
I'm an offensive minded person, too. I love shootouts. I want both teams to "score too early" and see those games where whoever has the ball last wins. But there is nothing wrong with two defenses playing well, too.
I'll take an a defensive stronghold over a blowout every day of the week and twice on Super Bowl Sunday. For 2 and a half quarters, it was a 3 point game. No team was running away with it and no team was out of it. No ones play was considered "bad" and there weren't that many penalties. There was good defense played by both teams and Tom Brady, eventually, made more plays than Jared Goff did. Gostkowski and Zuerlein missed a field goal and Goff threw to a wide open Cooks too late that resulted in a pass that was broken up, but other than that, there weren't that many bad plays.
Sean McVay got out-coached and he openly admitted it. It wasn't even really by all that much but enough to decide a football game.
This whole "declined ratings during low scoring games" take is all a marketing thing and has nothing to do with football. The people who thought that game was boring are either casual fans, people who aren't fans but are just at a Super Bowl party, and the people who care more about fantasy football than actual football. You know those guys that will walk into a room full of guys all cheering for a team like the Chiefs and say, "I want the Chiefs to win but I also need Ben Roethlisburger to throw 7 touchdowns to Juju Smith-Schuster." It didn't matter if you were cheering the for Patriots, Rams, neither, or just for a good game, you got a close hard-fought football game and don't ask for more.
The biggest problem is that all throughout the season, offensives have been catered to by pass interference, defensive holding, and roughing the quarterback penalties that keep the ball in the offenses hands longer than they should have. So those penalties weren't called and teams were forced to punt. The inconsistency between the regular season and the post season should be the biggest complaint. Not a low scoring Super Bowl.
In all fairness, I'm glad I didn't pay $7,000+ to go to the Super Bowl. But I had no problem with a close and well played game.