NFL caps a season amid the pandemic with a Super Bowl like no other

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• Judy Woodruff:

  Veteran quarterback Tom Brady notched his seventh Super Bowl win last night, a record, this time at the helm of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

  The accolades for Brady and teammates seem familiar by now.

  But, as Jeffrey Brown reports, while millions tuned in for what has become an American tradition, there were reminders everywhere that it was a game and a year unlike any other.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  Whether it was the fewer fans and cutout photos of others, or the ads that were all over the place on addressing or not addressing current events, or the fact that, yes, there was a game even amid the pandemic, this was a Super Bowl that in some ways captured our very strange moment.

  William Rhoden is a writer at the sports and culture website The Undefeated. He was there last night, and joins us now.

  Thanks for joining us again, Bill Rhoden.

  So, you wrote in a column today about the difference a year brings. Did last night feel real or surreal from where you sat?

• William C. Rhoden:

  Surreal by a long shot.

  I have covered a lot of these. And, yesterday, last night, sitting in a press box with 70 colleagues in a press box that hold 300, looking at cardboard cutouts posed as fans, was just really surreal.

  Yes, the NFL did pull it off, but you have got to wonder, at what cost? What are going to be the long-term health effects of a lot of players who were hit with COVID? We just don't know. I'm sort of concerned about that.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  Well, I mean, talk a little bit more about the NFL, because, on the one hand, as you say, they pulled off the season, they pulled off this event.

  They also were touting a social justice project that they are now putting forward, but they're still — some of this is — this is a sport that has so many continuing questions around it and its commitment to social justice, whether you mention Colin Kaepernick or many of the Black coaches getting positions.

  Where do you see things?

• William C. Rhoden:

  Well, this was an economic initiative basically to fulfill a TV contract, so the NFL could give the owners basically their stimulus checks.

  So, fine, that's great. And — but they wanted to do a Super Bowl so we could see some degree of normalcy. But this was so abnormal. And in terms of social justice, the NFL gets an F. You have another hiring cycle, one African American coach without got the job in Houston, basically under pressure from the quarterback, Deshaun Watson, no.

  Still, the lack of African Americans in the executive suite and in the coaching is — it's terrible. It's really terrible. And we're all wondering, what do you do to make these owners do the right thing?

  I mean, many of them seem to just have a sort of Confederate — invisible Confederate Flag of resistance around the organization, saying, you are not going to make us do anything. Talk is one thing, but actions — we're looking for actions now.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  I mentioned the ads, which also seemed to add to the strangeness of last night, at least watching from home.

  Could you see American corporations groping with how much to address our moment. So, some of them went directly to social protests or the pandemic. Others could have been ads that — in any Super Bowl year.

• William C. Rhoden:

  Yes, we, as a nation, just have some really grappling to do with the truth.

  And the NFL is sort of a metaphor of that groping, a league where 70, 72 percent of the players are Black. This is about power and control. And the NFL and many of the corporations who are their partners talk a good game, but they are not giving up anything.

  So, before the Super Bowl, during the Super Bowl, and now after the Super Bowl, you still have to deal — have a reckoning about, how are you going to deal with power, control for African Americans in your league, in a league that was built on their shoulders?

• Jeffrey Brown:

  Now, in the meantime, a game did happen, right, and the Buccaneers won, and Tom Brady won his seventh Super Bowl, an incredible achievement.

  You write about this. And, of course, you have written about this for a long time. It is the role of sports in either as a kind of salve or sometimes bringing us together. What did you see last night?

• William C. Rhoden:

  Yes.

  Well, I mean, listen, I think sports, not the business of sports but just the competition of sports, is great. Tom Brady is a bad man. I don't care. And we can say that, and go on and celebrate that, not as independents or Democrats or Republicans, but just as people who are cheering for a team.

  And that's great. And I think that sports is about accountability. Like I said, the scoreboard doesn't lie. I think that we are in this realm where people can invent their own truth. You can't do that in sports. The reality is the reality. The truth is the truth. The scoreboard doesn't lie.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  And so what kind of game did you see last night?

• William C. Rhoden:

  Kansas City had their clocks cleaned.

  (LAUGHTER)

• William C. Rhoden:

  I don't care — the fans, if they are supporters of the former president, fans can't say, well, Kansas City really won the game.

  No, you didn't. You lost. Go home, get better. That is what everybody saw. That was the truth. Like I said, scoreboards in our business of sports don't lie. That was the truth.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  All right, William Rhoden of The Undefeated, thank you very much.

• William C. Rhoden:

  Thank you. Take care.

• Judy Woodruff:

  We will remember that. The truth is the truth in what you see in sports.