The Front Row with Tim Dahlberg February 4, 2013

NEW ORLEANS - It ended another lifetime after it began, with the Baltimore Ravens gladly surrendering two points that meant nothing except to some lucky bettors in Vegas. One brother patted the other on the cheek and, just like that, the strangest Super Bowl you will ever see was finally over.

If football is a game of momentum, the San Francisco 49ers probably deserved a better fate. It took a blackout to get them going, only to have some pedestrian play calling with the game on the line finally finish them off.

This wasn't two coaching geniuses at their best, not even close. Their father, Jack, surely saw that from the stands, where he and his wife, Jackie, spent more than four hours trying their hardest not to root either way as their sons went up against each other on the biggest stage in football.

One, though, was better than the other, and in the end that was why the Ravens were holding the Lombardi trophy aloft in celebration while the 49ers filed quietly off the field.

Advantage, John.

Not that either coaching Harbaugh could be totally at fault in a game that went a whopping 4 hours and 14 minutes. Watch all the film you want, do all the planning you can, but nothing could prepare them for a 34-minute power outage that turned what was becoming a Ravens blowout into a thrilling game that could have lit up the Superdome just by the sheer energy of everyone involved.

John Harbaugh had joked during the week that whoever lost would always have a chance to regain bragging rights on the golf course. But both knew one would be bitterly disappointed, and the other would be feeling some of his brother's pain.

"It's a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be," John said. "It's very painful."

Not nearly as painful, though, as it was for his little brother.

Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@ap.org or http://twitter.com/timdahlberg