Super Bowl Predictions

+ The Super Bowl marks the end of the NFL postseason, and as such, I will shave my beloved playoff beard. I'll miss Old Scratch, but the week to cultivate my Pro Bowl 'Stache will ease that pain.

+ This year's Super Bowl logo [pictured] will go down as the worst one since last year's version. Seriously, what's with the turrible logos this decade? I never thought I'd yearn for the design aesthetics of the late 80s and early 90s, but there you have it.

+ Jennifer Hudson will stretch the anthem past two minutes, most likely breaking down in tears at some point but with the help of Jesus power and Obama strength, will recover to end with the trilliest of overwrought flourishes. "Fun" fact: Even if JHud butchers the anthem for an interminable 120 seconds, she still won't make the honor roll for the longest anthem in SB history.

+ Save to cash in on my anthem wager, I will watch a combined zero mintues of pregame and halftime festivities. Just show me the game, TV! All that other MTV'd-out, yay-America pomp is for the dishrags who "don't really get pro football" and print out scorecards to rate the commercials. These are the same people who serve veggie spring rolls and have quirky napkin rings (and for that matter, napkins) at their Super Bowl party. Spring rolls are not Super Bowl food! Super Bowl food is fatty and greasy and barbecue-y. To wit...

+ I will eat so much shitty food washed down by so many shitty beers that there's a good chance I won't have the motor skills or brain function to change the channel or stand up under my own power and will therefore end up watching the episode of The Office that NBC will air immediately after the game. Truthfully, I didn't know what show was slated to follow the game until I looked it up just now. This is different from two weeks ago during the AFC Championship Game when Jim Nantz couldn't let three plays go by without plugging The Mentalist—whatever that is—on CBS.

+ I'll get sucked into the Puppy Bowl for half of the third quarter and won't mind a bit.

+ The Pittsburgh Steelers will win, in a not-great game. It will be a little sloppy and mostly lackluster. In other words: It will be a normal Super Bowl, like 37 or so of the 42 before it. Final score: Steelers 27, Cardinals 17.

+ Regardless, Larry Fitzgerald will have another silly crazy game and the world will anoint him the Best Wide Receiver in the NFL®, like they did to Randy Moss last year. Fitzy's bananas postseason has all but assured that he won't be around in the fifth round of my '09 fantasy draft, where I plucked him (to great success) this year.

+ Sweetpea, surveying the wreckage that has become of her formally generally kempt and civil husband, will, at some point in the afternoon, Google "annulment + illinois + football" with fingers crossed.

+ Lucky for me, she will not pull the trigger and I'll have until early August to atone for my loutish behavior before the whole NFL cycle repeats itself.