Although this year’s commercials sucked, Super Bowl XLI rocked because the Colts won (hey we all know where my loyalties lie), Peyton Manning finally got his ring, and while watching Chicago fall apart in the second half, my roommates and I got into a rowdy debate about what life’s little arguments would be like if everyone were required to play by the rules of football.
How cool would it be to be able to throw down a red coach’s challenge flag every time you got into an argument with someone and you knew for certain that they were totally off base with some ‘fact’ they were using to bolster their case?
The little red flag would make it compulsory for your psychology professor to take a time out, get on the Internet and verify facts, proving you right and saving you the trouble of having to get into a lengthy and pointless argument.
Each participant in a heated debate would have four downs to prove their point or advance the conversation. Failure to make a pertinent point in four downs would mean ceding control of the conversation to the other combatant.
Bringing up events from the past – something my parents, or anyone who’s been in a serious relationship for long enough to accumulate a backlog of resentment, tend to do a lot – would be considered offsides.
If people get belligerent enough to start exchanging blows, the mediator calls “unnecessary roughness” and the guilty parties go to their rooms.
And the next time your roommates try to play the game where everyone gangs up to accuse you of never doing the dishes or never resupplying the toilet paper, you could yell “too many men (players) on the field.”
Think about how awesome it would be to be able to halt the action around you by throwing down a yellow penalty flag.
“Party foul! Lick up that beer spill.”
“Grammar foul! ‘Who’ should not be used interchangeably with ‘whom’.”
“Dating foul! You do not get to jump into my bed on the first date.”
But aside from its similarities to life, football is also the only one of the four major pro sports with an actual championship game instead of a multi-game championship series.
And that is why the Super Bowl is the single most popular sporting event every year. It is the climax of an entire season of ups and downs. It’s the big game. You either win it or lose it in one outing. There are no second chances.
It’s not like the World Series where a team can lose the first three games but still rally back to win the championship if they get their heads screwed on right in Game 4.
The only other sports that come close to football in their winners-take-all-losers-go-home dynamics are soccer’s World Cup, and the four Grand Slams in tennis. (Though a significantly fewer amount people actually care who wins the four Grand Slams every year because the viewership numbers for tennis are significantly lower than those of the NFL, a more mainstream sport.)
As is the case in life, big moments are rare, and should be valued as such. You don’t get a do-over if you screw up a job interview. Similarly, if you’re lucky, you get one chance to win the Super Bowl. Lose that game, and it’s all over. Sorry Rex Grossman. Try again next year.
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