Let's get one thing straight before we start, Adele is a goddess.  

She has single-handedly rescued the music industry with a much-needed jolt of star power on the charts with the smash success of her past two albums (which will soon both reach Diamond status -- a designation for those rare albums that sell of 10 million or more).  She is also the first artist since Elton John to have a best selling album in 3 different calendar years (and is projected to stay within the top 5 of the best selling albums of 2016 with her 2015 release, 25).

So inviting her to the Super Bowl seems like a no brainer, right?

Well, kind of.  Her songs are usually the type you eat your feelings to with a bowl of ice cream alone at night, rather than with a group of individuals looking to pass the time in between helpings of chicken wings.

And yeah, sure, it's a bit of a suspect pick to have Adele perform the year after the NFL screwed things up by inviting Coldplay to the stage.  The sensitive alternative rockers seemed an odd choice from the start and were promptly overshadowed during their performance the minute Beyonce and Bruno Mars tried to resuscitate the disastrous halftime offering (spoiler: nobody was capable of saving this year's show, it was a tragedy beyond repair).  

But while Coldplay's arena rock played like a transparent choice to appeal to the people who could care less about football, the mere thought of Adele's brand of adult contemporary balladry seemed like a much bolder move from an organization that loves to play things safe.

AND SHE TURNED IT DOWN!

Well, according to her, she did. 

Of course now Pepsi and the NFL are playing down any rumors that Adele was even offered the gig in the first place.  

But who are you going to believe?  The #1 selling artist in the world right now, or two companies who are not above a little cover up here and there?  

I mean, just take a look at the carefully-worded official joint statement that the NFL and Pepsi lobbed together: 

"The NFL and Pepsi are big fans of Adele. We have had conversations with several artists about the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show. However, we have not at this point extended a formal offer to Adele or anyone else. We are focused on putting together a fantastic show for Houston and we look forward to revealing that in good time."

While we have no proof of Adele's actual reaction to that statement, I think we can all imagine it looked something like this.

So, for the sake of this conversation, let's just assume she was offered the gig (cause, she probably was).  The fact that she looked at a potential audience of 135 million people and said, "nah," only reinforces the power she currently yields in the pop music world.  

Other artists would KILL for that slot.  

But when you hear her explain her reasons for not taking the gig, you start to realize that she really has a strong grasp of what makes her her.  

Among some of the notable items:

• Saying that the halftime show is not about music (right on the money).
• Claiming she doesn't dance like Beyonce (yeah, but to be fair, Beyonce doesn't sing like her, so...).
• She's not opposed to doing the Super Bowl in the future (maybe the next album, she teased).
• And that people thought she would announce she's pregnant during the performance at the Super Bowl (in the video, she announces she's in love with cheese and is going to have a "cheese baby.  And also, no, she's not pregnant now, thanks for asking).

With that in mind, we'd like to congratulate Adele for playing hard to get.  She'd definitely put on a better show than Britney, Drake or any of the other individuals some writer half-assedly put together for Fox Sports in this article (when the author gets around to saying Genuine would make a better halftime show than Adele, you really have to wonder how long their iPod has been stuck in 2004).  Moreover, she can actually sing and has better songs. 

That's beside the point. 

Anyway, with that in mind, I thought it might be a good time to revisit an article I put together when the NFL made the announcement they screwed up and gave the show to Coldplay last year.

Here are some highlights.

• "The sports world was not happy to hear that Coldplay was just named as this year’s Super Bowl halftime... It’s a thankless job really, as you don’t ever get paid to do it, and the public’s already looking to see something go wrong... But while folks like Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, and Beyonce have been strategic forms of counter-programming, designed to attract folks outside the normal NFL programming circles, the choice of Coldplay seems… well, just kinda boring."

• "But as anyone who’s watched an episode of So You Think You Can Dance will tell you, we are all good on Coldplay routines.  Their music is so low key, I’m not even sure the Super Bowl Staple of Cirque Du Soleil could bring this back to life, and they once provided a breathed some life to Madonna’s tepid half-time performance.

• "Be afraid.  There are a number of tough guys who profess to watching the NFL who say they have no feelings, who are going to be looking up to the sky when they start to play the first few chords of The Scientist."  

• Also, I predicted Beyonce and Bruno Mars would be on the show, months before it was announced they were.  No big.

You can read the article in full right HERE.