Clichés Ahoy! Super Bowl Week Starts with Media Day

Published on 27-Jan-2014 by Chips 10

Football - NFL    NFL Daily Update

Share this article


Clichés Ahoy! Super Bowl Week Starts with Media Day

Maybe the US Postal Service delivers despite rain, snow, sleet, or hail, but they only do it six days a week. The Super Bowl does it on Sunday.

We think.

The NFL has made contingency plans to stage its annual centerpiece on the Friday or Saturday before or the Monday after its expected Super Bowl Sunday in America's Garden State, New Jersey. One week before kickoff, the temperature is in the 20s and the wind chill makes it colder.

Peyton Manning, for one, must be thinking, "I finally get back to the big game and I get the Ice Bowl II!"

But the hype must go on. And it officially begins today with Super Bowl Media Day.

This is the event where reporters give thanks to the football gods for players like Richard Sherman. They've already written down the boring, politically correct quotations that the NFL likes to hear from its automatons; all the scribes then need to do is place a random name next to each of them and head to the bar early, because no one will know otherwise. Ah, but Sherman! Finally! A real interview! Those are rare, so savor them when they happen.

Media Day also marks the start of official game predictions. Seattle has the defense to stop Denver's passing game, and if it snows or is bitter cold, Denver's great receiving corps -- led by Wes Welker and Demaryius Thomas -- will have a rougher go of it. Seattle's Sherman would love the weather to be cold, putting more pressure on the running game of the Broncos, led by Knowshon Moreno and Montee Ball.

The Seahawks may also benefit from the cold because of their featured running back, Marshawn Lynch. The conditions may take pressure off of quarterback Russell Wilson, whose performance has slipped towards the end of the season but who rallied to make some key throws in their NFC championshp victory over the San Francisco 49ers.

The Los Angeles Times has rolled out its reasons for predicting a Seattle victory. However, EA Sports has done its simulations, and here's how Madden 25 sees it:

No matter what, it's going to be cold. Believe it or not, the record low at a Super Bowl kickoff is 39ºF in New Orleans, of all places, so that's the infamous mark to beat. NFL optimists are pointing to those forecasts saying it'll be a decent winter's day, but the hard fact is weather predictions are all over the map right now. The 197-year-old Farmer's Almanac, for example, is holding to its hard stance, which is to bundle up and bring your own shovel. And mess with the Farmer's Almanac at your peril.

Everyone saw the cold over the weekend at Yankee Stadium. Hockey fans still came in record numbers. Football fans will be no different. To be certain, the NFL will give each patron a bag of thermal swag; all that's missing is a boda bag full of that proven winter warmer, 7Up and bourbon.

Perhaps if the players took that advice and had a few pulls, there would be fewer clichés during Media Day.