Regional Sports

Super Bowl fatigue hits New York

We are few days away until the Super Bowl takes place.

There hasn’t been much buzz or talk about the Super Bowl. There hasn’t been much anticipation about it. It might as well reach the Pro Bowl level of interest if I didn’t know any better.

There are several reasons. For one thing, people here are tired of watching the New England Patriots year in and year out in the Super Bowl. Second of all, most football fans here feel the New Orleans Saints were robbed of a Super Bowl appearance after there was no flag called on Los Angeles Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman for committing a blatant interference penalty with a helmet-to-helmet hit on Tommylee Lewis well before the pass arrived inside the 5 in the NFC championship game. Finally, it’s been such a long football season that New York sports fans have decided to follow other sports.

There’s no way the Super Bowl should be played on Feb. 3. It’s too long for this to happen. This should have been played last week, so that it could be over with. Instead, we have to deal with endless chatter of what will happen between the Patriots and the Rams in the Big One.

Yes, the ratings will be high for the Super Bowl like it is ever year. People here will be watching since there is nothing on and it’s the NFL yearly grand event. There are going to be parties dedicated to this game at homes and restaurants. But it does not mean people are thrilled about the game.

The Patriots are hard to root for. They are arrogant, and they back it up by winning. There’s nothing likeable about Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Patriots coach Bill Belichick. It’s hard to enjoy a championship game when it’s the same team over and over. Think about how awful the NBA Finals have been the last two years with the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers participating in it.

No one in New York wants to see a Boston team win another championship, especially after the city just celebrated the Red Sox winning the World Series few months ago. This would be just cruel for New Yorkers to endure.

The Patriots are boring to watch. They make winning easy, and we expect these great moments from Brady. We have become numb to it. Even the Patriots players don’t find winning exciting because they have been there done that. To them, winning is a job instead of fun.

It’s hard to come up with any great moments that the Patriots have given in the Super Bowl since they always win. People would rather remember the David Tyree’s helmet catch against the Patriots in the Super Bowl since it was the play that denied them of a perfect record and a championship. People love it more when that team fails.

There is just no drama with them. This is where Belichick deserves credit for making sure there are no distractions that would be in the way of the Patriots’ pursuit of a championship title.

For the Saints to not play in the Super Bowl, it is tough to deal with.They have every right to feel they are screwed. Yes, give the Rams credit for playing well enough to get good luck in the end, but if the Saints had the call, they are in a position to finish the Rams off in the NFC title game by having a chance to score a touchdown. Instead, the Saints got a field goal, which gave the Rams life that helped them be in a position to tie the game and go to overtime.

It’s hard to watch the Super Bowl knowing what could have been and what if the Saints were there. It’s a problem the fine people of New Orleans have to deal with for a long time. It’s something they and the Saints won’t get over with.

Football fans were robbed of seeing Drew Brees matchup against Brady in the battle of quarterbacks in the Super Bowl. There’s a good chance Brees may never play in the Super Bowl again, so this call hurts.

The Saints provide more intrigue than the Rams. The only thing good about the Rams is their head coach Sean McVay since he is so smart that he can be the only one that match football wits against Belichick. Other than that, it’s hard to even care about them.

It wasn’t a great year with the Giants and Jets having losing seasons. The fans have been indifferent going back to December. The playoff games haven’t been good outside of the title games. When a team has a long season, fans tend to withdraw and find something else to watch.

That could be really the reason where there is not much interest or buzz about the Super Bowl. When fans moved on long time ago, it’s hard to get them back. With spring training starting soon, our town has been more focused on the Yankees and the Mets.

With the Super Bowl being a week wait, the games tend to be flat. Plus, the game is more of an event than the game itself. It’s more for the tourists, corporates and causal fans than the real football fans. Too much hype that precedes the game turns the fans off, not to mention the players get worn out.

A long season wants this game to be over with more than anything.

The best part of the game will be when it starts and when it ends.

This is the way it goes when we are too fatigued from watching too much football.

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