What do you call a piece of dinnerware that fights crime and can fly? Super Bowl! That’s right, Super Bowl week is here. Now, while we all prepare ourselves for vast amounts of hors d’oeuvres and yelling at our TVs as though this time it will actually change the referee’s mind, we have to be aware of what we should be looking for during the big game. So let’s get down to business (go ahead and hum those words to the music from “Mulan,” you know you want to).
First and foremost, what every die hard football fan needs to know to appreciate one of the greatest days in sports is clearly the very important Super Bowl commercials. In 2017, the commercial to watch for is whatever marketing piece comes from Mountain Dew. After a strong showing in 2016 with the ever horrifying “Puppy-Monkey-Baby” ad, who knows what they’ll come up with next.
Those not interested in the football game itself have more than just the commercials to look forward to. Female pop icon Lady Gaga will be performing at Super Bowl LI’s halftime show. So when your Great Auntie Agnes, who says she loves that young-people music, falls asleep before kick-off in the La-Z-Boy that she claimed for herself at your first birthday party and now expects whoever is sitting in it to move when she arrives so she can sit in “her chair,” you should definitely wake her up for the halftime show.
Now, while you could wake her up by laying back in deep pass coverage and shouting her name from a distance, I suggest going for the all-linebacker blitz and waking her up for Lady Gaga like any good Great Nephew would; Poker Face until she wakes up.
As for the game itself, there are some key things you should watch for as the Atlanta Falcons try and beat the ever-challenging New England Patriots. First, things to take note of on Atlanta’s side of the ball. Falcons’ running back Devonta Freeman has been a beast the past two years, and he’s hoping for a ring to top off the 2016-17 season. However, those dreadlocks of his are really getting long, and I think that’s going to be a major factor in his aerodynamics in Houston. With that dry, arid environment, those braids of majesty could even dry up, get a little itchy and cause some devastating chaffing on his neck. This could become a real target for the Patriots’ defense, and they might even look at switching his 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner in the locker room to just shampoo to really magnify the weakness on the field.
There are a few more things to keep an eye on when it comes to New England. Most importantly, we have to be seeing if Bill Belichick is sporting a hoodie and sweatpants with or without sleeves. I’ve been studying some game film recently, and based on the Patriots’ offensive and defensive schemes, I’m thinking he shows up in full-length sweatpants with a cut-off hoodie to successfully battle those high, Texas temperatures. If played out correctly, Belichick’s wardrobe could really give New England the upper hand.
Houston and Foxborough are two very different places, but it will be very interesting to see how these footballs hold up in NRG Stadium compared to back in New England. Will the football’s air pressure integrity stay intact? Or will the balls be as deflated as Aaron Rodgers’ hopes of another Super Bowl victory? Can Tom Brady afford to have to destroy another cell phone, especially with iPhone prices as high as they are? According to NFL insider Jay Glazer, these are all game-time decisions.
Jokes aside, if someone were to ask my actual personal opinion and prediction, I would tell them I’m pulling for the Falcons and Matt Ryan, but my brain is telling me the Pats are taking the cake this year. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick will go down as the greatest player-coach duo in perhaps the history of sports, and New England will bring home the Lombardi Trophy once more.
