super Bowl 2001

Once again, the National Football League season has reached its culmination, and once again millions of Americans with gather to celebrate and watch the Super Bowl.

It's a day I usually look forward to with something best described as maniacal glee. A day when people can eat and drink to excess, scream and throw things, and then pass out on the couch with only the slightest guilt. Kind of like Thanksgiving, but more violent.

Anyway, for the first time since I can remember, I have no interest in watching the game. No, I have not fallen down any stairs, or had that operation the editor keeps suggesting I look into. It's simply a matter of having to watch two teams I despise, and knowing one of them is going to have to win.

Why torture myself?

On one hand you have the Baltimore Ravens, formerly the Cleveland Browns, until Art Modell's titanic sense of greed got the best of him. Win or lose, Modell should be hauled across Ohio and made to kiss the wind-chapped ass of every soul who ever bought an overpriced ticket to see his perennially losing team. On top of that, the Ravens beat the Broncos to advance in the playoffs, and even if they were the better team, I'm not about to forgive them.

On the other hand, there's the New York Giants, coached by a former Broncos assistant who left Denver with Dan "run it up the middle again" Reeves. The Giants, if you can remember through the hazy tears of the 1987 Super Bowl party, also soundly defeated the Broncos in a nationally televised embarrassment.

It was that defeat which caused John Elway to look for a better life as a used car salesman. Luckily, that story has a happy ending, but I still can't get over watching a couple of teams that might as well be from Burkina Faso.

I could even find something to cheer about in last year's game, which also featured teams owned by jerks who screwed their original home towns. For one thing, the Rams and Titans don't have a history of crushing my team, and for another, they both had exciting players I enjoyed watching.

Therein lies the real reason I can't bring myself to watch this game.

Aside from the pathetic conference championship games a week ago, the Ravens and Giants are each averaging negative 3 points per game. They are so dull, I wouldn't be surprised if ESPN is forced to run clips of Pepsi commercials as game highlights.

These are two boring teams who play boring football. Admittedly, their game plans and tactics have been proven effective, but so is flossing your teeth. And I'm not going to watch that for three and a half hours either.

-Brian Taylor, Jan. 24, 2001