Super Bowl Fatigue
Just play the game.
This two-week run-up to the game is ridiculous.
And I know, having been inside the sausage factory a dozen-plus times.
This week before kickoff can seem unending. Especially if you have the misfortune to be in the same city as the game ... or the even worse fortune of covering it as a journalist. Which I have done ... a lot.
Way back when, the days before the game could possibly be vaguely interesting. Before it became a fully scripted and rehearsed event. As it has been for, oh, at least 20 years.
There is precious little real journalism going on this week. It's about 50-some guys on two teams who are going to say nothing for several days, then go into seclusion, while, what, 10,000 "journalists" try to find something interesting to relate to readers.
About half the stories will be about "how awful Super Bowl hype is." And those are THE worst stories, because that's been written almost from Year 1 of this game.
I firmly believe the Super Bowl should be played the Sunday immediately after the conference title games. Keep at least a vague sense of freshness to it. Over 14 days of waiting, it goes dead.
Anyway, I have llitle interest in what anyone says this week because they won't actually SAY anything ... and what little they say will be the cliches coaches have ordered them to mouth.
It's stultifying. Can we go to kickoff and skip all this? No? Well, at least, let's have the two winning teams fly directly from the conference title games to the Super Bowl city, and have this over and done one week later.