Best advice to Phil Simms: Stay away from surfing the websites for a while. It’s not pretty.

I’ve been doing this longer than I care to admit, and I can’t remember a Super Bowl TV analyst getting obliterated worse than Simms did following his performance Sunday.

I’m not trying to pile on, but the volume and magnitude of the criticism is noteworthy if you follow this beat.

Richard Deitsch, SI.com:

The biggest problem on Sunday was Simms. He did not have a strong game, from his  inability to let plays breathe (tweeted media critic and NBA All-Star Kevin  Durant: “Feel like I’m playin madden, Phil Simms talkin to damn much.”) to too  often not providing clarity to the questions posed at him by Nantz.

More from Deitsch:

Minutes later, when Nantz asked him whether the Ravens should take a safety,  Simms said he would not punt the football. He followed that by saying Nantz  brought up a great point, followed by reaffirming his original position. (The  Ravens ended up taking the safety and them punting.) It’s simply hard to imagine  Cris Collinsworth or Mike Mayock being so hesitant on such a big stage.

Richard Sandomir, New York Times:

Once the game resumed, Simms did not seem to draw inspiration from Beyoncé or studying highlights in the dark. He offered a trite truism about the 49ers, who were trailing badly: “When you’re down, you have to make great catches.”      

Simms then added this tortured analysis: “One thing I’ve taken out of this game, and really all through the playoffs, is if you watch it, the number of big plays in the games are because the quarterbacks are throwing the football.” (Yes, yes!) Arm strength, he emphasized, is important.      

Then, after the 49ers had amassed 105 post-blackout yards and 14 points, to the Ravens’ 15 yards, Simms said that the power failure had not hurt the Ravens but that it had helped the 49ers. That just sounded wrong.

Dan Levy, Bleacher Report:

It’s amazing that Phil Simms is still, after all these years, the best option as a color analyst for CBS. Simms consistently failed to give viewers anything more than they could see with their own eyes, eschewing second-level analysis for straight narration on replays. 

Tom Hoffarth, Los Angeles Daily News:

After the power came back and CBS retained its audio in the third quarter, Nantz joked that it was Simms’ powering up his cellphone that caused all the problems.

“Yeah, I was doing some of my best work during that blackout,” Simms joked.

But not many were laughing.

Ken Fang, Fang’s Bites:

Phil Simms was missing and perhaps CBS needed to issue an Amber Alert for him as he did not have his best broadcast. Simms did not step up for a big game, a rarity for him. Normally in the upper echelon of NFL analysts, Simms had a pedestrian performance. Several times Nantz tried to set up him, but instead, we received silence from Simms. I’m not sure what was going on in the booth. 

Tom Jones, Tampa Bay Times:

It was a rough day for Simms. Too many times, play-by-play man Jim Nantz had to prod Simms for a comment. Nantz, who called a good and enthusiastic game, had to ask Simms to speak out on a brawl, as well as a fake field goal by the Ravens.

In both cases, Simms did little but relay what we already saw, failing to give the strong opinions that a good analyst should. Simms never said anything dumb, mostly because he hardly said anything at all.

Charlie McCollum, San Jose Mercury-News:

Simms was really the chief culprit, notably in the second half. He is the master of stating the obvious instead of providing any real insight, but on Sunday he just seemed a bit addled with things getting worse as the game went along.

Keith Thibault, Sports Media Journal:

Simms did not have his best day on the air.  He seemed confused at times about what was happening on the field and was not critical enough of either team.  This was evident when he said he would not “second guess” the Ravens’ fake field goal attempt in the first half.  He also seemed confused about how advantageous a safety would be at the end of the game when Baltimore was forced to punt from its own end zone with :12 left.  I felt Simms had slipped in the quality of his analysis all year.  Yesterday’s performance bore that out.

You get the idea. Unfortunately, so does CBS.