Superbowl

When I was a youngster I did not have much interest in watching football. Shortly after I was married, I was watching the Buffalo Bills play and the announcer kept referring to some of the players as “Pro-bowlers”. This was interesting, I knew that many professional athletes had experimented with playing two sports, now here were some football players who were also professional bowlers. The image of a three-hundred pound linebacker heaving a twelve pound bowling ball down the lane and smashing the pins to smithereens tickled my funny bone.

Then my wife, yes, my darling, dainty wife, who is an expert on the game of football, informed me that these hulking football players did not bowl professionally, they played in a special game called the pro bowl, just before the super bowl. I find this extremely redundant. Are these football players not already professional? Why invite a few select players to play in a ‘pro’ bowl. Does that make their peers amateurs? And what is wrong with bowling that they will not bowl professionally? Are these monsters of men afraid of being in an alley with a bunch of strangers?

Anyway, back to the Super Bowl, and more importantly, who is going to win, although I think it is a worthless endeavor to analyze who is going to win the game.  It is fruitless because once we know who is going to win there is no joy in watching the game. If people knew which team was going to win, they would not watch the game, if they did not watch the game, this would cause the great Chip and Dip Recession. This recession would be due to the loss of sales from all the un-purchased and un-eaten chips and dip that normally would be served at Super Bowl parties.

Despite the grave inherent dangers to the economy, I will lay out which team is going to win the Super Bowl via a scientific analysis of all pertinent data. First the players. Both teams have an equal number of players This is curious, it is almost like someone planned to limit each team to that same number of players. Since each team has the same number of players, and they have endured the same number of games, and have both done well enough in their divisions to reach the Super Bowl, I think any analysis of the depths of their roster is futile.

Instead, let’s direct our attention to the fans. It is these fans who create the energy that teams thrive on. It seems that each teams’ fan base is equally vocal and wild with regard to the support of their teams. Therefore, I tried a real world experiment. I found ten slightly inebriated football fans and first had them chant the name of the Green Bay quarterback, Aaron Rodgers. This they were able to do quite easily and it was not hard to hear the sing song chant clearly calling out his name “RODgerrrrs, RODgerrrs!”  Then we moved on to Pittsburgh’s quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. This presented some difficulty. They started to chant but it sounded like the men were chanting “Cheeseburgers.” This would never do, so I corrected them, and they started to chant again. This time was better, if you like rutabagas. “Rutabageeerrrrrrrs” over and over they chanted. I tried to correct them yet again, but the fans thought it was the fourth quarter, and like most football fans they were more than slightly inebriated. Clearly the fan advantage goes to Green Bay.

The next area of inquiry is the cities from which these two fine teams originate. Green Bay and Pittsburgh are both known as being run-of-the-mill cities: Pittsburgh for its steel mills, and Green Bay for its paper mills. Since steel is mined as ore, this gives Green Bay the advantage again, since rock smashes scissors, scissors cut paper, and paper covers rock. The Packers play on a field named after a long time, well-loved coach and founder, Curly Lambeau. The Steelers play on a field named after a condiment. Advantage: Green Bay.

Under these circumstances, I predict that the Pittsburgh Steelers will win by one kick of the funny shaped ball through those sticky things at the end of the field. Why the Steelers? Because, they are used to playing in catch-up mode and everyone knows that rutabagas are good with ketchup.