A Nerd's Survival Guide to #SuperBowl XLV
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @AdamReisinger
Hey, so we did this last year, and apparently it was pretty popular, so let’s do it again: your nerdy survival guide to Super Bowl XLV. If last year’s guide was Super Bowl Sunday 101, then this is SBS 206: Advanced Super Bowl Party Survival. So make sure you’ve completed the pre-requisite coursework (e.g. CLICK HERE TO READ LAST’S YEAR’S GUIDE) before enrolling in this year’s class.
OK, everyone got their No. 2 pencils sharpened? If so, why? This is the Internet. No one uses pencils anymore.
First things first, XLV is 45. The NFL insists on using Roman Numerals to designate their Super Bowls. Why not just call it the 2011 Super Bowl? Well, that’s because the NFL plays nearly the entirety of its regular season in one year (in this case, Sunday’s game will determine the champion of the 2010 season), then the playoffs spill over into the next year. So “2011 Super Bowl Champion” could be confused as the team that won the Super Bowl in 2011, or the team that won the Super Bowl following the 2011 season. As for why they use Roman numerals and not just standard numbers, well, they just look cooler (note: may not be factually accurate).
This year’s teams are the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, two of the most storied franchises in NFL history. Even if you don’t know what colors the Steelers wear, trust me, you know. It’s not like this song hasn’t been played on the radio (OK, Pandora, since NO ONE listens to “the radio” anymore… God, Adam, what are you, like 30? Yes. Yes I am.) like a billion times.
Lil’ Wayne released a Packers version of this song called “Green & Yellow”, but it’s horrible for two reasons:
1 – Lil’ Wayne is annoying and needs to go away
2 – Lil’ Wayne is from New Orleans, the city that won the Super Bowl last year, and has NO connection to Green Bay.
Now that you’ve got all the information you need to know about the teams (what? You wanted more than “Black & Yellow” and “Green & Yellow”? Trust me, you’re set.), here’s a quick rundown on some of the people you might already know, and why you might already know them:
Ben Roethlisberger
The Steelers quarterback has already won two Super Bowl titles (SB XL and SB XLIII), but is probably best known among the general public for the two sexual assault cases he’s been involved with. Roethlisberger has never been charged with a crime in connection with either of the cases, but was still forced to sit out the first four games of this season by the NFL.
Troy Polamalu
The NFL’s reigning defensive player of the year, Polamalu is best known for his long hair. The Steelers safety has a lucrative endorsement deal with Head & Shoulders, and his hair is insured for one million dollars.
Clay Matthews
The Packers linebacker is Green Bay’s answer to Polamalu, with long, flowing locks of his own. He just signed an endorsement deal with Suave (note: my shampoo of choice, though that’s really irrelevant in the grand scheme of things), but he’s also part of a long football legacy: his father – Clay Jr. -- played 19 seasons in the NFL, his uncle, Bruce, played 19 seasons, and his grandfather, Clay Sr., played four seasons.
Mike Tomlin
The Steelers coach graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School with a perfect 4.0 GPA and became a diagnostician at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. He was recently promoted to Head of Diagnostic Medicine in the absence of Dr. Gregory House… oh, wait, no, that’s Dr. Eric Foreman, the character played by Omar Epps. But Tomlin and Epps really do look very similar, and many, many people – including the writers of “House” – have noticed this.
Brett Keisel
OK, so unless you’re a football fan – and a dedicated one at that – you probably have no idea who this is, but you should I mean, look at that beard!
All right, so now you’re ready for the game, but Super Bowl Sunday is about so much more than the game, which is one of the main reasons a nerd can fit in at a Super Bowl party. Really, it’s all about “the game around the game.”
The national anthem is being performed by Christina Aguilera. She’s hot. This has no bearing on anything (unless you’re a compulsive gambler), but it gives me an excuse to run a Christina Aguilera photo here.
Yeah, that’s nice.
Not so nice is the halftime “entertainment”, provided this year by The Black Eyed Peas. If you’re at a party with real football fans, everyone will use this time to refill on food and drinks, so don’t worry about the halftime show anyway. I’m sure someone will have some kind of feeling about tonight being something more than an adequate evening, and possibly having the time of their lives, and everyone will agree that the Black Eyed Peas need to go away and that Fergie isn’t as hot as Christina Aguilera.
And last but not least, there are the commercials. As a refresher from last year, you don’t want to be the person at a Super Bowl party who says “I only watch for the commercials”, in part because that singles you out as stupid, but also because the commercials have become worse and worse with each passing year.
I’ll leave you with a piece of advice from last year, since I think it’s applicable to every Super Bowl in which you don’t have a personal rooting interest. Gauge the sentiment of the room early on and figure out which team the majority of people are rooting for. Support that team. The game is more fun if you're winning or losing along with everyone else. You'll be surprised how quickly you get invested in what's happening even if you don't understand it.
Oh, and GO STEELERS!
#nerdsunite
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