The Su­per Bowl is a spec­ta­cle un­like any­thing else you could want to see.

Here are a few thoughts on the day as it un­fold­ed Sun­day at U.S. Bank Stadium:

• If you're will­ing to ac­cept a half­time re­view from some­one who un­apologetically loved the al­most u­ni­ver­sal­ly des­pised Black Eyed Peas show from sev­er­al years back, here is the short ver­sion: Jus­tin Tim­ber­lake crushed the early part of the show with old favorites and a wink-nod to the "wardrobe malfunction" show with Janet Jackson so many years ago. But if it was going to include Prince, it needed to be done differently. The duet of sorts on "I Would Die 4 U" seemed like a strange afterthought.

• It's hard to say de­fin­i­tive­ly the break­down of fans and wheth­er one base was just loud­er than the oth­er, but my best guess is the crowd was a­bout 60 percent pro-Eagles, 35 percent pro-Pa­tri­ots and 5 percent pro-Vi­kings. Eagles fans were cer­tain­ly en­thu­si­as­tic, though they couldn't match the o­ver­re­ac­tion of some near­by Pa­tri­ots fans who went bal­lis­tic with joy when New Eng­land won the coin toss.

• As I worked my way through se­curi­ty and into U.S. Bank Stadium a­bout three hours be­fore kick­off Sun­day, one of the first peo­ple I saw was form­er Vi­kings quarterback Brett Fav­re. He was be­ing whisked some­where brisk­ly.

• Speaking of form­er Vi­kings, new­ly elect­ed Pro Football Hall of Fam­er Randy Moss got a deaf­en­ing round of ap­plause from the pro-Pa­tri­ots and pro-Vi­kings fans in at­tend­ance when he was intro­duced and shown on the big screen.

• Alan Page also got a nice round of ap­plause when he was intro­duced, and he did a seg­ment of com­men­tar­y on the in-sta­di­um broad­cast as well.

• On the down side of vid­e­o board time comes poor Eli Man­ning. He was shown pre­game as a pre­vi­ous win­ner of the Wal­ter Pay­ton Man of the Year Award and was prompt­ly show­ered with boos. Eagles fans hate him be­cause he plays for the ri­val Giants, while Pa­tri­ots fans have bit­ter­ness over those two Su­per Bowl loss­es at the hands of Eli's Giants.

• There were tons of Min­ne­so­ta mu­sic con­nec­tions during the week, but my favorite might have been when they played The Hold Steady's "Stuck Be­tween Sta­tions" be­fore kick­off in­side U.S. Bank Stadium. Sure, THS is a New York band, but front­man Craig Finn is a Min­ne­so­tan to the bone.

• From the ac­tu­al foot­ball de­part­ment: The Pa­tri­ots' de­ci­sion to not go for it on fourth-and-inch­es in­side the Eagles 10 (which looked even worse when New Eng­land missed the chip shot field goal) and then go for it on fourth-and-5 later in the se­cond quar­ter with a low-per­cent­age pass at­tempt that fell in­com­plete was … cu­ri­ous to say the least. May­be leave that off the high­light reel when Bill Be­li­chick goes into the Hall of Fame.

• Not a com­plaint, just an ob­ser­va­tion: When you at­tend the Su­per Bowl, you don't get to see the Su­per Bowl com­mer­cials. I'll be catch­ing up on that, as well as sleep, in com­ing days.