The Super Bowl — the best of football, and with it, an accommodating halftime show. At least according to the hype.

The game often draws the highest viewership of any televised show of the year and often breaks its own record. Oddly, however, since Super Bowl 51, the ratings have somewhat dipped, and that trend continued this past Sunday for Super Bowl 53, which brought in the lowest rating since the 1990s at 44.9.

The ratings slipped as the game went on, and it is no shock as to why. The competition, the halftime show, and everything else about the game was plain boring.

As a football purist who loves the Xs and Os of the game, I appreciate a great defensive game. I also appreciate amazing offensive games. However, this wasn’t either of those things. While the defenses surely did outplay the offenses, schematically and physically, the offensive gameplans were sloppily called and were flat out predictable. Both Jared Goff and Tom Brady looked mediocre at best, as the defenses either confused them pre-snap or they made unmistakable miscues.

There were three legitimately memorable plays. Three. There was no ‘wow’ moment, outside of Jason McCourty’s amazing pass breakup on Brandin Cooks. Yet that should have been an obvious touchdown had Goff seen Cooks even a second earlier.

The game was predictably called by both Josh McDaniels and Sean McVay. It was the same sequence of plays, and while the Patriots had obviously more success than the Rams, they played just as sloppily as the Rams did.

The schematics on defense were great, but it would be a stretch to call it a chess game when there was no opposing play. It seemed that McDaniels and McVay made little to no adjustments to counter Wade Phillips or Bill Belichick. If they had had some back and forth, it could have made for a great football game. In this case, however, there was not much there at all.

On top of the mundane game, the halftime show was nothing more than flat out bad. Maroon 5 sold out long ago to the mainstream, and the best that can be said is that they put on an ordinary show — fitting to the game, though. Spongebob was promptly ruined by a lackluster Travis Scott performance. Big Boi was the best part of halftime and actually was entertaining, but would it not have been nice if they had gotten Andre 3000 in there to have an Outkast revival?

Also, why was there only one Atlanta artist, Big Boi, performing at a Super Bowl in Atlanta? Atlanta is arguably the Motown of this generation. They could not have gotten Usher, Childish Gambino, or even Ludacris? Pretty sad that they didn’t have anyone else there from Atlanta.

Regardless, this is the NFL’s bigger issue: the lack of parity and integrity in the game at present. The refs were terrible, and the Rams should not have been there on Sunday. The Saints were robbed by an easily missed pass interference during the NFC Championship game, so did the two best teams really play here?

The Patriots returned for a third-straight year. I get it — that is greatness, their dynasty is awesome, but my goodness, can’t all their winning get boring? Nobody dislikes Brady and Belichick because of their character — it is because they win too much. Yes, the Patriots do have a negative effect on the league. The casual viewer does not want to see New England play for three-straight years in the Super Bowl.

There is a host of issues that contribute to the falling out of the Super Bowl, but one thing is for sure — the NFL has to improve the game for next year, in all facets.