The Super Bowl Prelude: Adjusting to Life Without Football

Matt Ufford is the editor of With Leather and a co-founder of Kissing Suzy Kolber. The Prelude is his sincere examination of the coming NFL weekend.

I've fallen into a bit of a depression. Part of it comes from being in Arizona without a defined purpose, without press credentials, and without my digital camera, which was lost to an alternate dimension shortly after I arrived here.

But mostly, it's because the NFL season already feels over. It ended with two terrific weekends of football -- a full weekend of great games in the divisional round, and two memorable conference championships two weeks ago. The bye week killed the season's momentum, and the media crush in Arizona (according to ESPN News, 4,786 accredited journalists were present at Media Day) has sapped away the unbridled joy I used to take in the Super Bowl.

Beginning Monday, we'll have little else to do but look back on another fun and unpredictable season, and the rest of the NFL die-hards can join me in this dark miasma of sadness. But I've never been good at dwelling in the past; I prefer to look ahead. Here, then, is my handy guide to surviving the NFL offseason.

The key is getting through February. A lot of people are quick to point out that February is the shortest month of the year. This is a lie. February may only have 28 days, but it is by far the longest month of the year. It's its own epoch: the weather is terrible, the days are dark, and the sports world offers little in the way to cure the NFL hangover. (Little known fact: the earth's rotation slows down to three-quarters of its usual speed during February, just as it does any time Sex and the City airs.)


But if you can make it to March, you're golden. March is spring training and the NCAA tournament, which gives way to April (Final Four/NFL draft/Opening Day in baseball), then the weather's fine and NFL training camps are just a summer away.

So how are you going to make it through February? Not by talking to your family, that's for sure. Here are a couple suggestions for passing the time.

The SI Swimsuit Issue. It's pretty much the only thing about February -- other than the Super Bowl -- that doesn't suck. Marisa Miller has a standing offer to crash on my futon whenever she comes to town.

Ruin Valentine's Day. Eat at a nice restaurant by yourself on February 14th. Glare at happy couples.

Vacation. You never use those vacation days anyway, take a week off and go somewhere warm with beaches. Assuming you have the time and money for a fancy getaway, Mr. Rockefeller.

World War Z. Two weeks ago I got a call from Orson Swindle of Every Day Should Be Saturday. We talked about multiple personality disorder, the challenge of writing fiction, the Taiwanese festival Yen Shui, and zombie movies. "Hey," I said, "how come I've never read any good zombie novels?"

Without missing a beat, Swindle said, "Because you've never read World War Z." And he's right. Zombies are a must for any oral history of a dystopian nightmare.

Oscar debates. Actually, on second thought, discussing the relative merits of Keira Knightley's performance in Atonement sounds terrible. Just go to the theater and re-watch No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood.

Buy some new jeans. Those are getting a little tight on you, pal.

Rock of Love 2. This show is horrible, and I love it. VH1 rounded up some of the trashiest women on the planet, and they compete for the right to maybe be the girlfriend of a musician in his mid-forties who wears eye makeup and hasn't been relevant in twenty years. And they actually want to win.

Madden. Now, more than ever, is it important to have a realistic NFL game. This is the perfect time to pretend the 2007 season never happened, then play out the entire season. Larry Johnson is unstoppable! The Jets are contenders! Randy Moss will be a bust! Make those dreams come true.

That's all I've got. Add your own in the comments and maybe we can make it through this month together. But first, a Super Bowl prediction:


Super Bowl XLII: Giants (13-6) versus Patriots (18-0), Sunday, 6:30 Eastern, FOX -- Over the last two weeks, a lot of people have talked themselves into thinking that the Giants will give the Patriots a hard time on Sunday, maybe even win the game outright. And that's fair: the G-men played the Pats tough in Week 17, and New York has looked sharp in the playoffs.

But when I look at the teams head-to-head ... the Patriots are a lot -- what's the word? Oh yeah: better. They went undefeated in a superior conference, they have one of the best quarterbacks of all time, and the best coach in the game has had two weeks to prepare for the game. So I'll take New England in a blowout. By 30? Sure, by 30.



(This week's 10 Things will look back on the biggest stories in the NFL this past year.)

1. Michael Vick. A tragedy in the Shakespearean sense, a cautionary tale for pro athletes, and a possible explanation for why his on-field accomplishments never matched his talent.

2. Sean Taylor. Possibly the most talented young safety in the game, cut down at the age of 24 in a thoughtless act of violence. Week 13's Prelude reflected on how we view death in the NFL.

3. The 18-0 Patriots. Spygate, Rodney Harrison's HGH use, accusations of running up the score, Randy Moss's reemergence, Tom Brady's record season and perfect life -- love 'em or hate 'em, the Pats' historic season was the year's biggest NFL story that played out on the field.

4. The rebirth of Brett Favre. Few people expected the old man to lead the Packers to the playoffs, and fewer still foresaw a #2 seed and an NFC Championship Game. I may not like the nature of sportscasters' relationship with Favre, but his success this year was great for the NFL.

5. Paparazzi target quarterbacks. Tom Brady frequents the West Village apartment of Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen; Tony Romo lands Jessica Simpson a year after telling the media that he'd like to date her. Athletes have now entered the realm of tabloid fodder, and I, for one, can't wait for the first Pacman Jones-paparazzi confrontation.

6. Derek Anderson and the Browns. Anderson, paired with the maturation of Kellen Winslow and Braylon Edwards, quieted the demand for Brady Quinn and led the Browns to a 10-6 season, a tiebreaker away from the playoffs.

7. Adrian Peterson. A supernatural force in shoulder pads. Not bad for a rookie.

8. The ascension of Eli Manning. He showed flashes of competence during his first four years in the league, but nothing like what we've seen over the past five weeks. Perhaps an all-Manning Super Bowl isn't so far-fetched after all.

9. The NFL goes international. Whether it was the first regular-season game held overseas or a Monday Night Football scoreboard written in Spanish, Roger Goodell is trying to expand the NFL's borders. Jerk.

10. Naturally, there are people who are offended that Story X and Player Y were excluded. So #10 is left open to any jackals who want to fight about it. In fact, I encourage arguments about the previous NFL season. It's one of the best ways to survive February.