Monday, January 29, 2007

Like an addict is to crack, the media is to the Super Bowl

Super Bowl week has started. I'm supposed to be all atwitter, counting down the seconds till kickoff. It's the biggest game of the year. Good Lord, the Worldwide Leader had coverage of the Bears' buses leaving for the airport on Sunday Countdown.

Despite the MSM saying I should, I'm not feeling all that "Super."

Why should I be so damn excited? It's just another football game. A big game, to be sure, but it's not going to live up to the exhausting hype. It rarely does.

You can count the number of close, exciting, competitive Super Bowls on one hand. I'm not anticipating this game to be one of them.

We've already had one week of relentless, breathless, useless media bullshit. For the next 7, count 'em, 7, days, we are going to learn more about the Bears and Colts than even the most rabid fan needs, or cares, to know.

As the media hype machine is going to be in overdrive, we fans are going to hear things that make no sense. But it's Super Bowl week, and there are tons of unnecessary column inches and air time to fill.

For example, we are going to have the starting quarterbacks shoved down our throats. I could give a crap that Peyton Manning finally won a big game. To be honest, play enough big games, you are bound to finally win one of them. At least Manning deserves much of the praise that we'll hear this week. Not all, but most...

But on the other side, Rex Grossman is an awful, awful quarterback. If he's not one of the worst QB's to ever make it to a Super Bowl, he's in the top 3. (I think we can all agree on David Woodley, Trent Dilfer, and Grossman, in any order.) I know it, you know, it, and nothing that the MSM might say is going to convince me otherwise.

So don't even try to tell me that Grossman "Manages the game," or that he "Fits in with what the offense is trying to do." Both are euphemisms for "We have to alter the game plan so he doesn't blow it," and "We don't have anyone better, otherwise his ass would be riding the pine."

Tomorrow is the hated "Media day," where the ink stained wretches, the TV pretty boys, and any damn asshat who could finagle a press pass gets the freedom to ask some of the most stupid, asinine, pointless drivel, masked as questions. Rarely will a player say anything other than the most standard of clichés during the media gang bang.

It's the same damn stories every Super Bowl. The stars will be swarmed, and asked the same routine questions over and over, hope against hope they slip up and say something controversial. You'll have the media interviewing one another. There will be the usual clowns trying to be the center of attention who come from media entities that have no interest in the game itself. There will be the quotes from the backup player who sits off to the side, and some hack things it'll be "Cute" to talk to them. Christ almighty, we've seen and heard it all before...

In other words, it's the same shit, different Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl brings out the worst in sports. The media overkill, pretentious self importance of the NFL, the players being lionized, it's enough to make you want to turn the hype machine off, and forget about the whole God damn thing.

And before you even ask, yes, I'll be watching the game.

1 comment:

  1. I don't even read the Super Bowl preview articles that clog up my sports section this week. I don't need to know every little tidbit about every anonymous player, or have every potential "key matchup" analyzed to death. I don't need to hear every sports-radio station in the country broadcasting from the site of the Super Bowl, recycling the same guests up and down Radio Row. And I never, ever, ever, tune in a single minute of the 6-hour pregame show. I'll start paying attention at kickoff time.

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