Fox Sports sideline bunny Erin Andrews morphed into the WWE's Eugene "Mean Gene" Okerlund in her postgame interivew with the Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman. The loud and proud Sherman did an impersonation of his boyhood idol, Muhammad Ali, in proclaiming himself the great defensive back in the NFL. Andrews stood there, during the tirade, with a bemused look on her face. The Super Bowl silly season is upon us. If this is a (fair & balanced) equivalent of studio wrestling, so be it.
[x Esquire]
A Guide To Super Bowl XLVIII Media Narratives: Prophecies, Probabilities, And Promises
By Christian Araos
Tag Cloud of the following piece of writing
To some, the buildup to the Super Bowl is just as delightful as the holidays. These people are weird and should be avoided at all costs. The Super Bowl buildup is not like the holidays. It’s like the evening commute during a snowstorm — a regular process that gets unnecessarily dragged out, and long enough that people will invariably die before we reach our destination.
This means we’re in for a bunch of narratives — some bullshit, some less bullshit; all bullshit, though — created solely to satiate our thirst for football coverage.
Here’s a handy guide. Adjust accordingly.
If Life is a Disney Movie, Peyton Manning is Good and Richard Sherman is Bad. Life Isn’t a Disney Movie.
This will be the most frequently occurring narrative that you will hear during the next two weeks. Peyton Manning is seen as a football circle “good guy.” Manning is hard working, resilient, gentlemanly, a legend. He’ll be in the Hall of Fame when he retires. He is also about to turn 38 in March. With an exam on his neck upcoming, we’ll be facing the “will he retire a champion?" question for the next two weeks.
Richard Sherman stands in his way. Sherman is your Jafar-esque Disney bad guy. After years of railing against thank-you-Jesus pabulum in postgame interviews, it turns out sports radio meatheads actually lap that shit up after all.
Sherman spoke loudly and candidly after the Seattle Seahawks won the NFC Championship on Sunday and it melted talk radio into a fine, Velveeta-like substance for the next 72 hours. More people debated if he was a “thug” on TV yesterday than any other day in the last three years.
He views himself as the best cornerback in the NFL. This was arrogant. This was bad. He was viewed as a pro wrestling villain, or just a villain altogether. Villains are bad.
Peyton Manning will win, goes the story, because good triumphs over evil. There’s your basic narrative.
But what if this is a movie for someone a little older and Peyton Manning is your standard issue Varsity Quarterback Motherfucker? What if Richard Sherman is the guy who beats the Varsity Quarterback Motherfucker? How do you feel then?
The Snow Will Ruin Everything
This will be the first Super Bowl to be played outdoors in a setting that experiences an actual winter. It will also be the only time that the 10-day weather link for East Rutherford, New Jersey on weather.com gets used. After the Super Bowl, that link will disappear, just like the rest of the Weather Channel.
The story will be centered around the fact that it happens to be cold in the New York area during the month of February. It also happens to snow. These two things have never been so feared by anyone as they are by Roger Goodell. If it snows, the league might move the Super Bowl to Tuesday. The NFL is more fearful of the snow than they are of the concussion lawsuit being reopened by a federal judge.
No One From the East Coast is Going to Watch
This is the first time since Super Bowl XXIX (1995) that the two teams competing are from west of the Mississippi.
This narrative appeared in the buildup to that Super Bowl which featured the San Francisco 49ers and the San Diego Chargers. It was the second Super Bowl of the '90s to feature two teams from the same state. But here’s why broadcasters and the NFL really feared that game: Everyone knew that the 49ers would kick the San Diego's ass. The Niners were the most heavily favored team in Super Bowl history. They gave 18.5 points and covered, winning 49–26.
This is a different story. The Broncos are favored by three points. That margin probably won’t fluctuate. Plus, five of the last six Super Bowls have been decided by a touchdown or less. We’re in for a good one, but you can be forgiven for not wanting to watch the game if you are either: a) A Patriots fan, b) A rational man with no interest in watching Bruno Mars perform or, c) Michael Crabtree.
When you hear this subject brought up, just reference your local TV guide. East Coasters, your network TV options for 7 p.m. include "America’s Funniest Home Videos," "60 Minutes" and "Dateline." A repeat of the "Walking Dead" is also an option if you get desperate and you like watching people die for a third time.
It’s the Super Bowl, Maaaaaan
No shit, it’s the Super Bowl. But it is also a matchup between Washington and Colorado, the only two states that permit recreational use of marijuana.
Insert all of your weed jokes here. No really, put them all here. Detox yourself now. Get all the jokes out.
This is a storyline that hopefully will live up to the hype, though it would not be the first time the green was smoked at MetLife Stadium. (That’s not a Jets joke, but it can be.) With many fans expected to take NJ Transit from New York to the stadium, it is highly recommended that fans puff the loud before reaching the stadium.
Something Bizarre Will Happen with Players in New York
To be fair, there are a couple of precedents that substantiate this idea.
New York has seen athletes do plenty of stupid things. There’s Tony Parker nearly losing an eye in a fight between Chris Brown and Drake, Plaxico Burress shooting himself, Alex Rodriguez talking and the New York Knicks playing basketball.
Plus, bizarre incidents involving players happen well above the mean on the eve of Super Bowl. Eugene Robinson of the Atlanta Falcons was arrested in Miami on the night before Super Bowl XXXIII for soliciting a prostitute just hours after being named the NFL’s Man of the Year. Robinson was released and able to play in the Super Bowl the next day only to be torched by John Elway and the Denver Broncos.
Four years later, Oakland Raiders center Barret Robbins went AWOL during the week of the game. Robbins had bipolar disorder and, by his account, was going through a two-week manic episode in which his mental condition deteriorated to such a state that he felt he could not be around his team. The Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 48–21.
Expect this narrative to be brought up as a condemnation by a grumpy, old football columnist.
The Power Will Go Out Because of Chris Christie
New Jersey’s infrastructure has already been at the center of recent scandals involving New Jersey’s governor, so why not again?
New Orleans’ infrastructure was an issue well before the power supply to the Superdome cut off during the third quarter of last year’s Super Bowl. It’s an absolute certainty that this will happen again in New Jersey because, unfortunately, the only thing that doesn’t run on lies and corruption in New Jersey right now are the lights in MetLife Stadium. Ω
[Christian Araos is an editorial intern at Esquire magazine. Previously, he was a staff writer at Empire of Soccer, as well as a staff writer at Ithaca College's campus newspaper — The Ithacan. Araos received a BA (journalism) from Ithaca College.]
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Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves by Neil Sapper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at sapper.blogspot.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available here.
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