Super Bowl Week is Here!!!

I guess it’s Super Bowl Week officially now (which calls into question exactly what last week was – the Super Bowl Week Preview Week?), and that can only mean that it is now time for incessant talk about anything marginally related to the game. And so basically, this week when you turn on any of the roughly sixteen ESPN networks you’ll get a slightly different take on what’s going on as the big game approaches. Obviously there will be one channel following around Peyton Manning. You’ll probably have a twenty-four hour locker camera in each team’s locker room. There will be one camera dedicated to following around Michael Irvin (and this one will certainly be the main camera of focus for the Miami Beach police). And then of course we can hopefully get at least one camera dedicated to following Lee Corso as he attempts to play pranks on Phil Simms and Jim Nantz. That leaves about eleven ESPN television channels left, and so I’m guessing that about six of them will be dedicated to broadcasting NFL football players playing poker at the site of the Super Bowl, Miami, FL.

But in addition to the endless hype about the game itself, there has come to be an endless amount of hype about the commercials that will be broadcast during the game. What I have never been able to understand is that there are actually people out there who will watch the Super Bowl only to see the commercials. Seriously people, each year at least 90% of these commercials suck. There is no other way of putting it. And if you really want to see the commercials that badly, you only have to wait a few hours after the game and you can probably find them all on the internet. Those businesses that actually purchase advertisement time during the Super Bowl must know that they are wasting an incredible amount of money.

Ironically, as I discuss my misgivings with the whole fanaticism concerning Super Bowl commercials, I will discuss which commercials I’m hoping to see during the Super Bowl. (Actually, that was a bit of a joke as I’m not really hoping to see any Super Bowl commercials. If it is up to me, and I can make things happen, I will be in control of the television remote and I’ll be constantly flipping channels during the commercials.) Well, if it were up to me, every single one of the Super Bowl commercials would be a Nutrisystem commercial. I’m sure you have seen the ones about which I’m speaking: the ones where Football Hall of Fame former quarterback Dan Marino talks about how much weight he’s lost with Nutrisystem. (“I’m at my playing weight!”) Well, years ago I noticed something; whenever former football players are on television programs and they are talking about football, it’s almost as they are contractually obligated (and by “contractually obligated” in this case I mean contractually obligated to the devil) to talk really tough and mean and let everyone know, “Hey, I did play professional football.” And this is regardless of whether the person was a defensive lineman or a backup punter. Well, in the newest variation of the Nutrisystem commercial, Dan Marino has a bunch of former football friends with him and they all seem to be feeling the sharp points of the devil’s pitchfork at their backsides. They really are talking tough. It’s like, “I’m tough. I used to play football. But guess what; I got fat. But I was still tough. But now I’ve lost all that weight now. And I’m still tough. My toughness was never diminished.” It’s almost like they are forgetting that in the female version of the Nutrisystem commercial the lady keeps exclaiming happily how she’s wearing a size two. It’s almost as if the former football players are forgetting that they are following in Monica Lewinsky’s footsteps and essentially doing a Jenny Craig commercial. But it doesn’t matter because they still sound tough…

So, my wish is for more football player Nutrisystem commercials during the Super Bowl…