There are a few things that I cannot stand about the focus that the sports world puts on the Super Bowl. Before I get going, I will say that I am fully aware that football is the biggest sport in the country. I get it. It's entertaining, it's exciting, it's violent. It consumes sports talk shows on Monday morning. Given a choice between the four major sports to go see in person, football would have to be third. Hockey, baseball, football, basketball. That's the order. Hockey is very fast paced, I grew up watching it, I went to college games as a kid. Every shot has a chance to make it to the net. Baseball is all about the atmosphere. The smell of the park, the feel of being outside, the history of the sport.
One thing that I cannot stand about the Super Bowl is the two week layoff between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. That two week gap leaves sports people too much time to find small, stupid, pointless stories about players or teams to talk about. No one wants to hear a half hour, in depth, story about how the New England Patriots are looking for revenge because the Giants have beaten them the last couple of times they played. It's noteworthy for a five minute look back at the previous games and move on. I'm not sitting on the edge of my seat waiting to hear if Rob 'Yo soy fiesta' (look it up) Gronkowski's walking boot has come off and if he is running routs or not. There are other sports actually being played. The past two weeks, two other professional sports have been in full swing. And leading off sports shows with Super Bowl none sense stories makes me not want to watch the shows at all. Which is what I do. I have watched very little sports shows these last two weeks because It just bores me.
The fact that it's a one and done championship drives the focus. With the other sports, they are played as a series. There is more carryover from game to game. It isn't all about who beat how months ago. If you have a player that commits a foul against another in one game, that animosity can carry over to the next game or during the entire series. It makes for more entertaining games if it's done right. With the Super Bowl, sports people are talking about a game four years ago and how some of the Patriot players feel about losing to the Giants. Hell, there's only about thirty five to forty players left on both teams that played in their last Super Bowl match up. I wouldn't think that you can call this a grudge rematch. Most of the big names are still around, but there always seems to be enough people to populate a small town on the sidelines and I am sure that the majority of them were not involved in their last Super Bowl meeting.
With all that said, I enjoy watching the Super Bowl. As long as it's a good game. Who wants to watch a game in which the winning team is up by twenty points at half time? It just makes the commercials that much more important. I want the Patriots to win this year. I always cheer for them because Tom Brady played at Michigan. It's always nice to see players you watched in college excel at the next level. It will be a close game. The Giants have been playing stellar the past two months. The past few years I have put up my prediction of who will win the Super Bowl and I have been wrong. So I am not going to do that this year. I am just hoping for a close game. I like both teams.
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