THE BIG GAME!!!

This is probably going to be very brief...

Ever notice how, more often than not, advertisements and shops and whatnot will not refer to the Super Bowl as the Super Bowl? I know it's got to do with the fear of some sort of copyright infringement, but it sort of removes the spirit of the game. Instead, all over the place, there are signs and advertisements not for the Super Bowl, or Super Bowl parties, rather, they look like this:

"PLACE YOUR ORDERS FOR THE BIG GAME!"

"YOUR OFFICIAL BIG GAME HEADQUARTERS!"

"BIG GAME PARTY HAPPENING HERE!"

We may as well just not call it the Super Bowl anymore. Instead, it's just the Big Game! And so, today, in The Big Game XLIII, we have the Arizona Iced Tea and the Pittsburgh...Whatever the hell they have in Pittsburgh. Rivers? Steel mills? A horrendous airport? I don't know.

The game should be pretty much scenery to the hoopla, it usually is. The stupid hype week usually kills whatever rhythm the teams have, so more often than not, the first half of the game turns into a rather epic crapfest. Look at last year's game. People call it the most exciting game ever, but how many people forget that for 3 quarters, the game was a mess, a 7-3 mishmash of punts and incomplete passes. I guess today could just as easily go the same way. I could talk about the high-powered offense of the Cardinals, or the sterling Defense of the Steelers, but I'm not going to tell you anything you didn't already know. These games tend to come down to who can control the ball and play better defense, and I think Pittsburgh can do both better than Arizona will be able to.

My pick: Steelers 23, Cardinals 14

And by Tuesday, most of you will have forgotten that the Cardinals were even playing in the game.

Enjoy THE BIG GAME, everyone!