SUPER BOWL EXTRA LARGE

Watching Joe Buck and Troy Aikman stand there in front of the FOX logo during the Seattle game made me think, "Hell, they could be in Burbank for all I know."

And ever since Peter Jennings freaked me out at one of the political conventions by turning off the arena crowd and showing the blue weatherman wall behind him, I don't trust any of those fuckers anymore.

Report: Colts Poised For Biggest Upset In Super Bowl History

DETROIT—Coaches, front-office executives, and players around the NFL all agree that an Indianapolis victory in Detroit next Sunday would result in the greatest underdog story in Super Bowl history, if not in all of sports. "After losing to Pittsburgh in the second round of the playoffs, for the Colts to come into Detroit and beat them—as well as the Panthers, their nominal opponent—that would almost certainly be the comeback of the century," said Bills general manager Marv Levy. "No one would ever dare say that Manning or Dungy couldn't win the big one after that. Yes, it's a long shot—the longest—but with the Steelers and Carolina concentrating on beating each other, Indy is perfectly poised to come from literally out of nowhere to complete their all-time greatest triumph." At press time, no member of the Colts would comment on the possibility of a Super Bowl victory, further fueling speculation of a colossal upset in the making.

I am also in the "need some" market as well - any eager Eaglets out there on the prowl for some IT meat, please drive up I-95 to my palatial estate, and I will romance you w/ some hott comic book chat and Arizona Green Tea.

Hello.

YOU: ON YOUR OWN 17 YD LINE, THROWING A FOOTBALL, WEARING #10. YOU GOT INTERCEPTED BY A REDSKIN AND I FELT REAL BAD FOR YOU.

ME: GIRL IN SECT 113, ROW 12, KIND OF GETTING A BIT SICK AFTER HALFTIME, RED HAIR.

I REALLY LIKED U. IF U SAW ME U SHOULD EMAIL ME! LIKE, GET SOME COFFEE TOGETHER?? OK.

DETROIT -- I'm writing this as I travel to my 31st consecutive Super Bowl.

This has always been my second favorite sports event -- The Masters wins by a single blade of Augusta National grass. But this year, the Super Bowl is beginning to feel like the Indy 500 without Danica.

Super Bowl XL is anything but Extra Large. For most fans who aren't Seahawks or Steelers fans, this matchup seems like it should be returned and exchanged.

If you love your Seahawks or your Steelers, please quit reading now. This isn't for you. This is for everyone else out there who is trying -- and trying -- to get excited about the NFL's showcase game. I sense less buzz about this Super Bowl than any I've attended. If any Roman-numeral game has ever deserved only one week of buildup, it was this one.

Super Bowl life ends at 40?

While Seahawks fans are sleepless in Seattle, media members are sleepy in Detroit. Somehow, the Seahawks and Steelers in Detroit seems like a consolation game. After three sensational weekends of playoffs, this is an anticlimax. Now we're paying the price for all those upsets.

How can these teams ever generate enough star power to live up to the telecast's Oscar-worthy commercials?

No Peyton or Brady or Vick or buzz.

No rivalry or bad blood or controversy or buzz.

Only zzz.

These Super Bowl highlights shouldn't be immortalized by the towering tones of John Facenda. Shelley Duval should narrate: "Once upon a time, there were two teams..."

The problem here is that, for the first time, the Super Bowl features two underdogs, two Cinderellas, two teams that came from nowhere on destiny-kissed rolls. One underdog can make for a can't-put-it-down script -- see some kid named Brady vs. Kurt Warner's "unstoppable" St. Louis Rams four years ago. But though this year's point spread is Pittsburgh by 4½, this feels like a game without a favorite.

The Steelers, the first sixth seed to make it to the Super Bowl, barely made the playoffs thanks to a fairly easy closing schedule. They beat Kyle Orton's Bears in a snowstorm in Pittsburgh, then took care of Minnesota, Cleveland and Detroit.

But would they have won their first playoff game, in Cincinnati, if Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer hadn't been hurt on his second play? Doubtful. Would they have finished off the season's most shocking upset, in Indianapolis, if Colts cornerback Nick Harper hadn't weaved back into a sprawling ankle tackle by Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger? No. Would the Steelers have been able to win in Foxborough if the Broncos hadn't upset the Patriots the week before in Denver? Highly doubtful. Would the Steelers have won in Denver if an early poor pass by Roethlisberger had been picked off in the flat by Champ Bailey and returned for a stadium-rocking touchdown? Probably not.

And now the AFC's sixth seed is favored over the NFC's top seed? This feels like a moderately interesting, Week 9 nonconference game.

Would the Seahawks have risen from 2-2 to home-field playoff advantage if Terrell Owens hadn't torn apart the Eagles? If Michael Vick hadn't regressed? If the Giants, Redskins and Cowboys hadn't been forced to do battle twice in the East and the Panthers, Bucs and Falcons hadn't beaten each other up in the South?

Things just kept breaking right for the Seahawks. Without bye weeks, the Redskins and Panthers were banged up before playoff games in Seattle -- where the Seahawks' 12th Man gives them the NFL's loudest and strongest home-field advantage.

Now we should write odes to a team whose MVP just might have been its fans? Who won't be much of a factor in Detroit?

A year ago, we had enough subplots to last us three weeks. We had the Belichick-Brady dynasty vs. the T.O.-McNabb Eagles. Would Owens' ankle and fibula miraculously heal in time for the game? Would Patriots enforcer Rodney Harrison separate Freddie Mitchell's head from his body after FredEx couldn't even remember his name?

I can't believe I'm writing this, but I'm starting to miss T.O.

This is a game without an established superstar -- unless you count Seattle left tackle Walter Jones, the lone cinch Hall of Famer. Pittsburgh's Jerome Bettis is not -- not after never leading his league in rushing and never having transcendent postseason impact. Bettis, a six-time Pro Bowl player, has been very good. Not great.

Bettis' returning to his hometown to play in his first Super Bowl in what probably is his final game is a nice story. But that doesn't make him Jim Brown or Walter Payton or O.J. Simpson or Emmitt Smith.

As much as I respect the Rooney family, I couldn't help chuckling the other day when Steelers owner Dan Rooney compared this team to the Terry Bradshaw team that won its first of four Super Bowls. Come on. That team had nine future Hall of Famers -- Bradshaw at that point being the least likely candidate.

Best case, this Steelers team has three candidates -- Bettis, Roethlisberger and Troy Polamalu.

Roethlisberger has the best chance of becoming this game's breakout Madison Avenue star. But as good as he is in his second season, it's laughable to hear angle-starved commentators already reaching to compare him with a young Marino or Elway. Calm down. Roethlisberger doesn't have Marino's trigger or Elway's mobility or either one's velocity. First let's see if Big Ben can beat the Seahawks.

Strictly from a football standpoint, this matchup is pretty intriguing. You have two pretty good, very hot teams that didn't play each other. Will the Seahawks be able to stand up to the spotlight and play as fast and furiously as they did at home? Will the "new" Steelers continue to be pass-first?

Whoops, another puncture in our Super Bowl balloon. The black-jerseyed, mud-and-blood Steelers often abandoned their running game early in their playoff road wins and opened up the offense and even resorted to trick plays. Though they're the Super Bowl home team, they've chosen to wear their white road jerseys. Now we don't even have a vaunted bully.

We have two very likable teams and coaches. We have Steelers coach Bill Cowher doing what a desperate, couldn't-win-the-big-one Mack Brown did at Texas -- backing off, loosening up, letting his young quarterback throw the ball. We have Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren, slipping off an early-season hot seat and now admitting he was beginning to doubt his ability.

You can't wait for Sunday, can you.

That's why I'm rooting for Steelers linebacker Joey Porter. Not in Sunday's game, but during Tuesday's media day. Porter is the only player on either team whose mouth is big enough to launch this game back into watercooler America's consciousness.

Please, Joey, say: "It's hard to get excited about playing the Seahawks. They wouldn't have made the playoffs in the AFC."

Please say: "Matt Hasselbeck has a lot of Jake Plummer in him. He rattles in big games."

Please say: "I guarantee we'll win by three touchdowns."

You're our only hope, Joey. Don't let us down.

Monday, 1:54 p.m. ET
Something that's becoming clear (and perhaps predictably so) is the ferocity with which the NFL aspires to promote the concept of the Super Bowl, a goal that requires everyone involved (including you) to embrace a specific philosophical contradiction: On one hand, we are supposed to view Sunday's game as the most significant conflict since the Tet offensive, because only a game of that magnitude could warrant such an ostentatious display of hyper-accelerated Americanism; at the same time, we are forced to concede that the game itself is fundamentally meaningless, since nothing this mammoth and transcendent could possibly hinge on something as trivial as Hines Ward's proficiency at running the corner post. It's the kind of circular logic that drives the Patriot Act: This singular game is so important that it's (obviously) more important than any single game.

Here's (sort of) an example: There is a lot of Super Bowl merchandise available in this Renaissance Center, and throughout the city as a whole. This, obviously, is neither surprising nor problematic. But here's what always baffles me: Why would anyone buy a T-shirt (or a hat, or an ascot, or a waterproof matador cape) that merely promotes "Super Bowl XL"? An inordinate percentage of the available items in the Renaissance Center's gift kiosks do not feature the logos of the Seahawks or the Steelers; they generically advertise the abstract existence of a football game. This would be like going to see Marilyn Manson at Madison Square Garden and buying a $22 T-shirt that said, "THEATRICAL, DRUG-FUELED ROCK CONCERT." It reminds me of the nonspecific commercials TV networks like NBC run that promote the channel itself, almost as if they assume there are actually people who privately think, "I have no idea what's on television right now, but I better check NBC first. I get the impression they're especially confident about the quality of their current programming."

And yet ... I suppose all of this nondenominational Super Stuff inadvertently defines the aforementioned concept of the Super Bowl, unquestionably the most bipartisan athletic affair in modern culture. At every sporting event, there is a percentage of the audience who does not care who wins and who loses; the Super Bowl is probably the only major sporting event where this is true for the majority of its audience. Twenty minutes ago, I ran into a reporter named B.J. Reyes, a newspaper reporter from Hawaii who's working on a freelance story for That's Guangzhou magazine, an English language publication in China. Football is (apparently) growing in popularity over there, especially as a youth sport (although they don't play tackle, for some reason -- it's all flag). Weirdly, Philadelphia Eagle tight end Chad Lewis is the face of the NFL for the people of China. Lewis attended BYU (and because he subsequently did a Mormon missionary in Taiwan), he speaks Cantonese fluently. Consequently, Lewis has become the gridiron's Far East ambassador; when the Super Bowl was first broadcast in China, he simultaneously delivered both the play-by-play and the color commentary. Within the world's strongest socialist regime, Chad Lewis is Brent Musburger.

Reyes told me that -- for the third year in a row -- the Super Bowl is scheduled to be televised in Guangzhou on a one-hour delay, which means it's essentially live, but it's on the air at something like 7 a.m. I'm guessing the game will be watched by one percent of the local populace, which (though I could be wrong) is approximately 67 billion people. And I'm sure these people won't care what happens. But perhaps they'll understand the concept, even if I do not.

Monday, 10:23 a.m. ET
DETROIT -- I am currently typing in ESPN's Detroit command center, which essentially means I am on the 18th floor of a very confusing building that is (apparently) supposed to signify the city's renaissance, inasmuch as the facility is actively called The Renaissance Center. This is a universe without corners; The Renaissance Center is essentially four cylindrical skyscrapers that provide no sense of geometric order. I keep hoping to bump into Ron Jaworski; I have no doubt he could enthusiastically explain the logic of this structure, as well as detailing what I should do if I step out of an elevator and everyone in the food court has dropped into Cover 2.

It's oddly quiet here on the 18th floor; there are about 14 dudes in one room and all of them are staring at laptop computers. Two people are talking about Brett Favre's possible retirement, and I occasionally hear John Clayton's dulcet voice mention something abstract about free agency. Everyone is understated; somehow, I anticipated more physicality. Thus far, I have exchanged a playful forearm shiver with absolutely no one.

There is apparently an ESPN "Global Planning Meeting" at 11 a.m.; there are several sheets of paper on the walls proclaiming this event. I suspect this meeting will be where ESPN (a) plots how to cover the Super Bowl and (b) decides how it will respond to the Palestinian elections (I say we play hard to get). It's weird being here, because everybody knows each other, and I don't know anyone, and everyone has work to do, and I have nothing to offer; all I can really do is look at the Internet and check the results from the SAG awards. I see that the big winner was "Crash," a movie designed for people in Los Angeles who just figured out that racism was "complex" (and must therefore be secretly central to every conversation any two Americans ever have). I wish one of the bears from "Grizzly Man" would eat Matt Dillon and Ludacris.

In other news, an intriguing dynamic is beginning to emerge within the hearts and minds of the Motor City. The local Detroit media appear obsessed with two diametrically opposed scenarios: The first is that Super Bowl XL is going to prove their community is a vibrant, dynamic metropolis with limitless resources and underrated energy; the second is that hosting this Super Bowl will prompt everyone in the national media to mercilessly criticize the totality of the metro area at every possible opportunity.

Detroit is like a 16-year-old girl who just paid $110 for the haircut she always wanted, but now she's driving to school and checking herself in the rearview mirror, and she's starting to suspect that she looks a little like Tawny Kitaen on the cover of "Out of the Cellar." Kids can be cruel, rockers.

Sunday, 11:30 p.m. ET
Here is a true story about Detroit that happened to somebody who isn't me: A man employed at one of the city's two major newspapers exited his downtown Detroit office to go home and drink a glass of wine; he worked the late shift, so it was already around midnight. The journalist adjusted his glasses and chatted on his cellular telephone, briskly striding down the sidewalk toward the company parking lot.

Suddenly, an unknown car pulled up beside the journalist, screeching to a halt; a large gentleman emerged from behind its steering wheel. This unknown gentleman walked over to the newspaperman and wordlessly punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground. "Get up," said the puncher. "Get up!" The newspaperman did not get up, as he suspected following these directions would result in more face punching. "Get up," the unknown assailant repeated. "Get up! You know what this is about! You know what this is about!"
The puncher kept making demands, but the victim's terror slowly morphed into mild confusion; to the best of his recollection, he had done nothing to warrant an unannounced pummeling.

"I think you have the wrong guy," he said, still crouching on the Michigan pavement. "I've never seen you before. I was just walking to my car. You are hitting the wrong guy." The journalist peered up at his attacker; the attacker looked down at his victim's face. It immediately became clear the puncher was, in fact, punching the wrong dude. Obviously, this was an awkward situation. The puncher uttered an expletive, returned to this vehicle, and fled the scene. The newspaperman found his cell phone, readjusted his glasses, and found himself oddly unsurprised by the event that had transpired. This, after all, was his hometown.

It's great to be in Detroit.

When ESPN asked me to cover Super Bowl XL, I was hesitant. I have a lot on my plate these days: I'm developing a sitcom for UPN about Antonio Davis' wife (it is tentatively titled "Oh No You Did Not Just Use The Metric System!" and is slated to star Wanda Sykes). I'm also trying to reenergize the tourist economy of New Orleans with "unconventional" humanitarian Anna Benson (she's like a cross between Thomas Paine and Albert Schweitzer, plus a killer rack). I enjoy watching football, but I also enjoy contributing to the actualization of society; in gambling terminology, this is what we refer to as a push. However, I eventually came to my senses: I simply could not pass up the chance to spend a week in hyper-sexy Detroit (the so-called "Houston of the North") in order to hear 140,000 sportswriters explain why Jerome Bettis is a class act.

The Super Bowl represents different things to different people. To some, it is akin to a secular holiday -- a drunken, three-hour Christmas for those who hate Jesus. To others, it is simply the annual matchup between the finest pro football team in the American Conference and the finest pro football team in the National Conference; mysteriously, that is not the case this season, as both teams are from the AFC.

But regardless of how you feel, one question demands consideration: What does the Super Bowl mean to me? What does the Super Bowl represent to Chuck Klosterman, a random writer you have never met and (in all likelihood) have never even heard of? That is the quandary that has America talking. And that is the quandary I will attempt to answer through this sporadically updated weblog, a process Arctic Monkeys fans like to call "blogging."

I have never "blogged" before, and people sometimes ask me why I do not have a "blog." The short answer is: "For pretty much the same reason I don't own a dog." If you're interested in the long answer as to why I do not "blog," you will have to read my blog, located at whyidonothaveablog@blogspot.gov (please leave comments and trackbacks!). As you might anticipate, I'm rather stoked about this new venture, as it will allow me to do the following "blog-o-centric" things:

Create useless slang for retarded hipsters.

Link to 70-track collections of Paul Stanley stage banter.

Post semi-nude photos of a young Cloris Leachman.

I guarantee this will be the greatest one-week sports blog ever written, or at least the best one since Jacqueline Susann's unforgettable blogging of the 1967 Ice Bowl. If this is not the best sports blog you have ever read, I will personally drive to your home, clean your garage, wash your car, shingle your doghouse with pancakes, and blow up your children with dynamite. That is my guarantee.

I shall not Vander-jack this opportunity; like Kobe against the Raptors, I am Napoleon Solo (i.e., unstoppable one-on-one). So, wassup, rockers? Do you (metaphorically) feel me? It's time we all embrace a little game I like to call North American football. It's time to make keen references to Shaun Alexander's addled skull. It's time to get punched by random strangers. This is Super Bowl XL. And I am ready.

he tries to front like he's this massive football fan or something. dude, if you are a football fan, you are excited about the Super Bowl. period. the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl. He's just pissed because he actually has to try to think about something to write about -- o no! column doesn't write itself -- and so failing that, he just writes about how he can't think of anything to write about.

So proud that Chicago ran him out of town. everyone in this town threw a party when he took his ball and left.

Ha ha ha holy fuck WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN. Would the Steelers have won all their playoff games if the other teams outscored them? Highly improbable!!

can we just rename this forum 'skip bayless - whatta cocksucker'

Pittsburgh has ran a trick play in every game of Cowher's coaching career for heaven's sake.

Hahaha like Marino beat the Niners??

also, klosterman should be marked for death.

if they had been tossing around slugs, there's no question which team would have won

I think every time from now on a team plays crap all of a sudden in the playoffs in exactly the manner you'd expect them to but thought they wouldn't, nay, couldn't, we should call it the Jake Plummer Memorial Redux. Because it doesn't have the same ring as the Peyton Manning Special Move.

They were mere pawns in my $ grab. Mercenaries to be used up and discarded.

Goodbye Pittsburgh, my Babylon.

I kind of want Holmgren's phone number so I can let him know that the refs didn't make him and his qb manage the game clock like they were playing in the Puppy Bowl. Someone give me a good reason why I shouldn't spend my evening tonight accomplishing this goal?

http://www.lynetteeklund.com/Bartles%20and%20James%20Parrot.jpg

(xp)

mookie, you are to be pitied for one day the Browns will rise up and...(transmission ends)

I've convinced myself, phone calls all around!!

the steve spurrier experiment was terrible.

basically we need more juggaloos calling the plays

not unless you wanna see shaun alexander get shot or shanked with a hatchet.

daver otm re: both moras.

(Of course, we then hired Ray "One and Out" Rhodes and Mike "Inexplicably High Winning Percentage Considering He's Just a Butter Statue" Sherman, and now Mike "Watch Out NFL I Was the Offensive Coordinator for the San Fran-fuckin'-cisco 49ers" McCarthy.)

But virtually all these boring technocrats are better than NBA coaches, who actually have to whine to get any calls at all, which is why the "great" ones are, well, Phil Jackson. What kind of Buddhist does all that wasteful face-contortion crap?

if phil jackson's a "buddhist" then dave raposer is a used-car salesman. just sayin'.

Trying to deposit 100 into various online sports books but getting denied ahhh

I’m all in on SF baby!