Forget what you heard, drank or ate last Sunday: Super Bowl XXXV was boring.

All that hype. All those interviews. Media day. An extra week off! In the words of legendary team player Ricky Watters, "For who? For what?"

Everyone and their mother knew this game would come down to the vicious defenses of New York and Baltimore, but I wasn't prepared to watch such an ugly game.

I just wasn't ready to see New York's Brad Maynard and Baltimore's Kyle Richardson combine for 21 punts, completely annihilating the previous Super Bowl record of 15. If I wanted to see skinny kickers smashing leather balls, I would have watched re-runs of the World Cup.

I also didn't tune into CBS to see New York's Kerry Collins embarrass himself and make a mockery of my prediction. (For those of you who missed it, I picked the Giants to win 17-13.) But before all of you Ravens fans start chanting "Loo-is, Loo-is," recognize that I didn't expect Collins to make more bad passes than a drunken frat boy. In other words, cut me some slack -- not even Vegas Vic could have predicted Collins' absolutely pathetic 7.1 quarterback rating.

Sure, Collins wasn't exactly Joe Namath out there, but it's time for Baltimore's defensive unit to get its proper respect. With every game leading up to the Super Bowl, analysts flirted with the idea that Lewis and Co. would finally meet their match. Fast forward two road wins later, and some guy named Trent Dilfer is going to Disneyland.

Maybe that's it -- defense may win championships, but it sure is boring to watch.

Other than the occasional bone-crunching hit, a stiff defense just doesn't do it for me. In terms of entertainment value, seeing the likes of Lewis and linebacker Jamie Sharper run down and pulverize New York's Ike Hilliard and Tiki Barber doesn't rank too high on my personal scale.

But at least there were commercials and a halftime show, right?

Wrong.

To add countless grains of salt into the wound, it seemed like this year's slew of commercials were markedly less entertaining than previous Super Bowls. Combine that with a dreary, punt-laden game, and you've got a 40.5 rating with a 59 share from 6:30 to 9:53 p.m. ET -- the lowest mark for a Super Bowl since the Washington Redskins' 37-24 win against Buffalo.

Translated, an average of 40.5 percent of the country's television homes were watching at any given time and 59 percent of in-use televisions were tuned into the "Super Boo" and those lousy commercials.

Speaking of which, the advertising execs who paid an average $2.3 million for 30 seconds to show a red Volkswagen GTI fall from a tree should be dropped from payroll, too. And isn't it 2001? You mean to tell me that Steven Seagal and his new movie, Exit Wounds, are worth that kind of loot?

And the absolute worst thing about Super Bowl XXXV: That deplorable halftime show.

It seems like every year this half-hour joke gets worse and worse, but I think this year's will hold a place in history.

Seeing Aerosmith, N'Sync, Britney Spears, Nelly and Mary J. Blige perform one big cacophonous slop was almost nauseating. All of the fireworks and fancy EyeVision technology in Tampa Bay couldn't have saved that sunken ship.

So there you have it, Super Bowl XXXV wasn't anything close to being superlative to me.

I want my Sunday night back.