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UPDATED: Everybody's wrong about the Super Bowl

    by Will Bunch | Columnist
    Published 

I'm all for attytood, having named my own blog as such, but even I'm getting a little tired about this notion that Super Bowl XLIII is going to (insert overused sexual metaphor of choice). I know there's too much hype in sports, and hype is a natural creator of cynicism -- but can't we wait until the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals actually play the game before we decide that it stank?

Here's an example:

Freeman's latest piece addressed something we've probably all been thinking: The Super Bowl is going to . . . well, The Inquirer won't let me use the word. Just rearrange the last three letters in Bowl, and you'll get the idea.
"Now comes the oddest Super Bowl ever: the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers," Freeman wrote. "Yuck. . . . Pulling nose hairs, a Vulcan mind meld, a severe case of shingles are all more entertaining than this mess will be."
Freeman gets points for being right (but not for the strange Vulcan/nose hairs bit). I couldn't be less excited about the Super Bowl if the NFL had decided to scrap the game and broadcast four hours of the Blowfish, minus Hootie.

OK, call me an outlier or something, but I don't want to see the same three or four tired franchises in "the Big Game" every year (especially if that franchise has "Dallas" or "Cowboys" in their name). I do find the Steelers a tad boring, but -- that whole Eagles thing aside -- I actually do like the idea of the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl.

Why? I like rooting for an underdog, and here's a franchise that hasn't won anything since '47 -- that's pretty "under." More importantly, the Cardinals have been playing the most exciting football around for the last month. Since I can't watch my fantasy of a Bruce Springsteen concert wrapped inside an Eagles' world championship, I'll settle instead for three hours of the electric Larry Fitzgerald.

These cynics putting the game down are the same folks who thought it was a joke that the St, Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans were in the Super Bowl, right up until the kickoff of one of the greatest games (and greatest final play) in NFL history. They're also the same people who told us don't even bother watching the lowly Giants up against the invincible Patriots this time last year.

You know what: Shut up and watch the freakin' game. If you're right (for once) and it really does stink, you have five long months to write about it.

UPDATE: A reader informs me I'm supposed to root against the Cardinals on Sunday on account of the 1925 Pottsville Maroons. I'll take that under advisement.