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If you are planning to watch this year’s Super Bowl with some friends or relatives, but you are embarrassed that you are not as knowledgeable about football or the two teams involved as some of the other people at the party have no fear the Super Bowl Primer is here to help you. Here are a few things to remember to help you sound like you know what you are talking about.

First we will talk about the Arizona Cardinals. The first thing you need to know about the Cardinals is that they are one the worst franchises in the history of the National Football League. They are owned by the Bidwell family who are notoriously cheap and have mismanaged the team for many years. They are the equivalent of the owner in your fantasy football team who showed up for the draft made laughable picks the entire time and then never bothered to make any changes the rest of the year. Oh that’s right you do not know that much about these teams so perhaps the fantasy football analogy might not make sense to you. Maybe a better example would be the person in your office who spends most of their time being unproductive, but inexplicably receives a promotion over those who are far more qualified and work much harder than they do. Let’s just say the Cardinals really were not good enough to interview for a management position, but somehow they got an interview and impressed everyone and the next thing you know they are interviewing to be the CEO of the company.  Really the most important thing to remember is that the Bidwell family have been inept at ownership for years. Try to make a joke about the Bidwell’s incompetence and how unlikely it is that they are in the Super Bowl. Maybe something like I heard the Ford family offered Arizona Ford Motor company, a first round pick and a swap of owners for star wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald and Arizona turned it down. They also wanted to install Bill Bidwell as the new head of Ford. Sure he has been incompetent for years and his team finished nine and seven and barely got in the playoffs, but Ford’s strategy has been to reward incompetence for years and hope to get lucky so they hope Bidwell will be able to bring some luck with him to Ford. If that joke is too convoluted or involved for you make a joke about how the Bidwell family is as deserving of winning a Super Bowl as Keanu Reeves is of winning an Oscar or  substitute Amy Winehouse for Keanu and replace winning an Oscar with winning miss congeniality.

The next important thing about the Cardinals is Kurt Warner. For those unaware his story is pretty miraculous.  Most people are probably familiar with his story by now. He was a bag-boy at a local grocery store and an Arena Football League star. He signed with the Rams and when Trent Green got hurt at the start of the 1999 season Warner took over and never looked back. He has won Most Valuable Player awards and been to two Super Bowls, winning one of them. He then fell apart the last few years in the process losing his job to Eli Manning in New York and struggling to keep his job in Arizona. He had a tendency to take hits and fumble the ball often. Thankfully he has a strong belief in god and a receiver in Larry Fitzgerald, who has as much god-given ability as any receiver with the possible exception of Randy Moss. Often Warner can just throw it up in the air forty yards down the field into double coverage and Fitzgerald will manage to out jump two defenders to make a spectacular catch. The strange part about this is that Warner has said recently that he is not really comfortable throwing it up for grabs to Fitzgerald. This is surprising coming from Warner who is a man of faith. God has given him a superior athlete at wide receiver, but he admits that if it were up to him he would not take advantage of these skills as much. That is why quarterbacks are not usually allowed to call their own plays. Warner wanting the Cardinals to stop calling so many plays where they air it out to Fitzgerald is analougus to Kiefer Sutherland suggesting to the producers of 24 that they tone down some of the violence and focus on using more diplomatic solutions when solving a crisis.

Arizona is extremely hot so far in the playoffs, but they were not really good near the end of the regular season. They lost to the New England Patriots 47-7 in the sixteenth week of the regular season. Sure it was in miserable winter conditions, but they barely gave any effort. They had also been beaten badly by Philadelphia and Minnesota in weeks thirteen and fifteen. So they were blown out in three of their last five games. Everything has turned around for the Cardinals in the playoffs. They have even been better on defense in the playoffs. Really the major impetus of their turnaround has been Larry Fitzgerald. He has always been a good receiver, but he really has gone to another level this year. He has surpassed one hundred yards receiving in each of the last five games. For those of you not that familiar with football statistics that is really good.

Another thing to remember about the Cardinals is that Ken Whisenhunt used to be the Steelers Offensive Coordinator and he was passed over for the job when Bill Cowher left by Mike Tomlin who was previously a defensive coordinator in Minnesota. Supposedly he is not bitter, but you can always mention to someone how you think he has an advantage since he coached there before. It is probably b.s. but a lot of the announcers who get paid to talk about it will bring it up.

While Arizona has always been one of the laughinstocks in the NFL, Pittsburgh of course is one of the elite franchises in the history of the National Football League. They have won five Super Bowls. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has already been to and won a  Super Bowl. He did not play particularly well in that game so he is looking to perform much better in this game. He is fairly mobile and really tough  to tackle due to his size, but despite what you will hear from many his fourth quarter heroics are not the reason Pittsburgh wins so many games. Sure he is good on occasion, but their defense was the best in the league this year and is the primary reason for their success. Led by linebacker James Harrison who is one of the better pass rushers in the league and Troy Polamulu who is a great safety who always manages to be around the ball. Undoubtedly one of the announcers will mention how he manages to always get his hands on balls and you can make some lame joke about how it said the same thing in Paris Hilton’s yearbook. It is a bad joke, but people will laugh because Paris was in a sex tape so that automatically makes her promiscuous in everyone’s book.

The Steelers defense, especially their ability to stop Larry Fitzgerald, along with the running of Willie Parker is the key to them being able to beat the Cardinals. Having followed this NFL season from the outset the logical prediction is that the Steelers will win this game easily, but like last year the NFL is a little crazy this year. Last year the Patriots were the first team to finish a sixteen game regular season undefeated, but they lost to the Giants who were mediocre in the regular season and got on a roll in the playoffs. The Steelers were a good team all year, but many of their games came down to the final minutes and they had a good deal of luck and strange bounces go their way. The Cardinals really seem to have the momentum though and I have to pick them. Vegas installed the Steelers as seven point favorites so I would suggest if you want to bet on the game pick the Cardinals. The Steelers may end up winning the game, but since they are not an explosive offensive team even if they win it may be by less than seven points. I am not a huge fan of the Steelers, but part of me wants to see them win just to restore order in the football world. The Cardinals did not really belong in the playoffs to begin with, but they are here and I think they are going to win the game. Larry Fitzgerald will be the star of the game and hopefully will win the MVP instead of Warner getting it for sentimental reasons. Of course that is nothing against Warner I just like to see the Most Valuable Player win the award and I suspect that will be Fitzgerald. I also predict that some people at your party will get way too excited about some of the commercials that are really not that good.

If you don’t know what you are talking about don’t go crazy. Just learn the basics, eat some wings, have a few beers and enjoy the game. Really if you have no idea what you are talking about, but keep yapping as though you do it will only annoy anyone who knows what they are talking about anyway. Here is a picture of the best coach in football so you know what to expect when the game is almost over. Someone always dumps the Gatorade bucket on the winning coach’s head.

Alright that picture was for me. I am still bitter that the Patriots despite beating Arizona by forty points and finishing with two more wins than Arizona did not make the playoffs. This despite having lost their best player the first game of the year and having half of their defense injured. They will be back next year though. Anyway enjoy the Super Bowl.

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