Our Annual National Feast and Holy Day of Obligation

Pardon us, world, but this is our religion, and this morning even the space shuttle decided not to take off in deference to the Mighty Game at Hand. And we don't care if you prefer your silly soccer that you jokingly call football over our game. You WILL watch our game. And your commerce shall cease as all your eyes turn this way to marvel at our ability to put on a giant show.

By now you should know the back stories. There's a guy who is helping survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Or maybe there are a bunch of those guys. There's another whose uncle recently died, and on his deathbed he told his nephew, "You must win the Super Bowl or my soul shall never be at rest." And he gasped his last and gripped the nephew's hand, pressing a special heirloom trinket into it, which the young player now keeps in his locker and kisses before every game. There's the quarterback hand-picked by God himself to deliver a city from its trials, and anyone who's ever been to Indianapolis knows what a trying city it can be. Then there's fate, destiny and many titles to be bestowed on various players by washed-up-jock columnists and cliche-spouting talking heads. Someone will be the MVP, another will play with more heart and soul and grit and temerity, (they love that word and once they love a word, expect them all to use it) and another will be carted off the turf, giving a guilt-freeing thumbs-up to us all as we applaud his sacrifice on the field of battle and the temerity with which he played the game, perhaps this being his very last, tragically. Now let's get back to smashing heads and finding out more about the breast cancer of the second string defensive end's mother-in-law. 

I love football. It's a fun sport. But I hate the Super Bowl and what it has become. I will probably laugh at a few commercials and cringe at others that involve Danica Patrick and that smarmy GoDaddy CEO. But as in the past, I am not engaging in what has become as much a part of this game as a sad old band playing their greatest hits at halftime, the business of reviewing Super Bowl ads. That will be handled on countless blogs by more accurate and fairer reviewers. I will enjoy some wings and beer though, I'm pretty sure. My country expects no less from me.