Let's face it man, it's trash town all the way with this so-called "Super Bowl" hype. We will draw out this nonsense with commercial time and billions in revenue until no one can predict what will happen, until the owners, who share in the loot anyway, have to keep the players on the field year-round. The sponsors won't mind. They are part of Team Nonsense, the folks who bring you this annual "show" of openly misogynist commercials and fake MVPs hyping crazed product placement.

Remember the baseball playoffs, the hockey playoffs, the basketball playoffs. The owners have changed all of these sports forever simply by making the underdog kings. They have done it it right in front of your eyes. They have sensed this love of the underdog, they have held meetings with their other commercial interests and they have concluded - an underdog team is a loved team, even by fans from other states.

The owners know this in all the pro sports leagues. That's why it is not unusual for them to sell off the players on a team that has just won the championship like they were yesterday's news. Because that is exactly what they are. The chances of getting back to that championship game the next year, getting through all the injuries because when you come to town as the "champion" the other team wants a piece of you, even if they can't beat you, are next to nothing. But those playoffs, where they are lining a team of champions up against a team of inferior players for which it is now or never, those are the games that hurt the most.

Some mediocre running back is going to run almost 200 yards. He is playing so far over his head that his display of running talent is not to be taken seriously. The championship team's quarterback is being mugged, and the national audience loves it. He's supposed to be one of the best quarterbacks of all time but he can't even get a pass off against this low rent team. And the announcers are saying. I knew it, I knew it. When Jack Dirtbreath got out on parole last month, I knew this team was poised for a comeback. And the Cinderella team label has already been attached. Somebody call the tee-shirt factory.

Business-as-usual is going to make a lot of money on this upset, an upset that would not have been possible without the lengthening of the season through never-ending "playoffs." The folks who lose out on this are the fans who see their championship caliber team taken apart by an inferior team which just happened to go up against them on a bad day. Play them enough and they're bound to have a bad day sooner or later.

That's what you should be thinking on Stupid Sunday when you dream of the Red Sox winning another World Series soon, or the Pats taking home that fourth Super Bowl trophy, or the Celts going all the way. Every year it seems more and more trash teams, teams who quite frankly played badly during the season and do not deserve a shot at the big one, will stand between better teams and the championship. As I have stated, this was not possible 30 years ago. Back then, when a pro team had a bad season, they didn't go to the playoffs.

Attending the playoffs used to be something you had to earn during the regular season. Not anymore.

Now all you've got to do is sit back and wait for the playoffs. Sure, win some of those regular season games. But don't worry, you don't have to play like a champion. Who knows, you could be a nobody with mediocre stats one day, then suddenly, with the new elongated playoff season, a couple of bad calls, some injuries to the other team, the wind at your back, you just might be named Player of the Year at the Super Bowl.     

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• « Football Fans, Players, Owners and Money
• Super Sunday - a Distraction with New Commercials »

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