It's not because I am not a football fan. Far from it; if my native Eagles or my adopted Chargers were playing in the big game, in which both franchises have participated a total of three times and are 0-3 in the event, I would be watching the eighteen or so run-up hours of programming to the SB while molded to my chair like Stephen Hawking. The Game is being played in Indianapolis this year, so the pre-Supe show probably began with a musical number called "Watching Wheat Grow," and will continue with the biographies of every player, coach and bartender in the stadium and finally conclude with a burst of pyrotechnics which would frighten Iran into giving up its nukes, while every military plane in the Midwest flies overhead and each team charges onto the field like uniformed lemmings who have spent really a lot of time in the weight room. I am not watching any of that. I've already seen it.
The fact that the Bowl is being played this year in a cold-weather city in a domed stadium also contributes to my disinterest. The only positive to this is that the network, because they already have a contract with an airship, will inevitably cut away at some point to an aerial shot high above the stadium's motionless roof and frozen parking lot and everyone watching will get a chance to think, "How pointless is that?"
Ordinarily, these flaws would not keep me from watching the game, or having at least a cursory rooting interest in one of the teams. This interest is usually based on my natural American tendency to root for the underdog, although that may be superseded by my rooting for a team that has never one a Super Bowl. (Saints!)
This chance will not be mine this year, because I find both of these teams loathsome, and this Supe is a weary repeat of the one four years ago. I don't want to disrespect the fans of either team; I know I would be just as consumed by fan-fever if I had ever become emotionally attached to either of these franchises. But I haven't, so I can say, in the most detached way possible, that both teams deserve to lose.
Why? Let's do one of those head-to head matchup columns that sportswriters love:
The Coaches: PATS: William "Cheating Bill" Belichick will be going for his fourth Super Bowl win as head coach of the Patriots, which will surely enshrine him in Canton, Ohio someday, despite having a personality and sense of humor that would have made him an exemplary employee of the TSA. If you want to follow Belichick during the course of the game, look for the worst-dressed man in the stadium; the Pats coach usually dresses for a game as you or I would dress for a full day of scrubbing out garbage cans.
PERSONAL REASON FOR DESPISING HIM: Beat the Eagles in their last trip to the Supe, before he was discovered and fined for illegally taping other team's practices. Did he cheat against Philly? We know he did.
POSSIBLE REDEEMING QUALITY: Fired Randy Moss, even though he only had a slow white guy with whom to replace him.
GIANTS: Tom "Yeah, I'm Pissed" Coughlin, will be trying to beat Belichick a second time for his second Super Bowl win. Coughlin is noted for berating his players in public. If you want to identify Coughlin during the game, look for an elderly man on the sidelines who looks as if he wishes someone would hand him a child to kick.
PERSONAL REASON FOR DESPISING HIM: Loses to my Eagles during the regular season on a regular basis, including twice this past season, often in hard-to-believe, humiliating ways, but ends up being in the Super Bowl anyway.
POSSIBLE REDEEMING QUALITY: Because he works in New York, hated by more people per square foot than any other coach in America, whether he wins games or not.
THE QUARTERBACKS: PATS: Tom "I Have Sex with Supermodels and You Don't" Brady. Why, you may ask, does Peyton Manning do all those hilarious commercials and Tom Brady never does a single one? Because Brady has less personality than a cold bucket of roofing tar.
PERSONAL REASON FOR DESPISING HIM: Carries out cheating schemes of Belichick.
POSSIBLE REDEEMING QUALITY: Whipped the snot out of pious Tim Tebow's Denver Broncos in the playoffs, deeply gratifying the atheist and agnostic communities, and proving to people that still believe that Jesus likes horny hedonists who father bastard children with one supermodel while engaged to another more than He likes public football pieties.
GIANTS: Eli "Little Brother" Manning. Only the second-best quarterback at his family's Thanksgiving dinner. Has no business being in a Super Bowl, let alone winning one.
PERSONAL REASON FOR DESPISING HIM: Refused to play for Chargers after they drafted him.
POSSIBLE REDEEMING QUALITY: Now that Peyton's out for an indefinite period, we may have to depend on him to do commercials.
There you have it. Beautiful day here in San Diego; I'm going outside and staying there until the game is over. You can see the ads on the Internet anyway.