Your guide to the Super Bowl

If you are like most Australians, you have no interest in the NFL, except perhaps at Super Bowl time. This leaves you with a decision to make about which team to barrack for in the big game. So, I will help you decide.

You have probably heard that Ben Graham, punter for the Arizona Cardinals, is about to become the first Australian to play in the NFL’s Super Bowl. Interestingly, Darren Bennett already owns an AFC championship ring to commemorate the San Diego Charger’s run to the Super Bowl of January 1995, but Bennett was only a back-up on that team, and didn’t actually play in the big game.

For some, an Australian’s presence in the Cardinals team will be enough to make them the team to get behind for the Super Bowl. Not for me though. I quite dislike Geelong and always thought Graham underperformed in the AFL. Then he ran off to the U.S. I understand the decision, but we all love to see our sports stars confound the expectation that they will do what will get them the most money. AC Milan’s Brazilian star Kaka is a bit of a hero of mine at the moment.

The other thing that you have probably heard is that Graham’s team defeated Saverio Rocca’s team, the Philadelphia Eagles, to get to the Super Bowl. A cartoonist friend of mine spent some time in Philadelphia, and as such is a (kind of) Eagles fan. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, I was glad to see them lose the NFC championship game.

I just haven’t much liked the Eagles since they got out from behind their division rival, the Dallas Cowboys, who dominated the NFL in my early days of following the league. In those days, the Eagles were likeable. They were often in the role of plucky underdog on Don Lane’s NFL highlights show, challenging the cowboys as best they could. It was endearing. But it’s not the 90’s anymore, and I no longer like the Eagles.

Given the Eagles are already eliminated, that was a basically irrelevant deviation, and now we can focus on Arizona’s opponent in the Super Bowl, the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers are a team i have always liked. In the 90’s they were known for their hard hitting defence, and were perennially a contender, without things ever quite falling their way.

That changed in the 2005/6 season, when they went into the playoffs as the 6th seed (of 6 participants) in the AFC. In the divisional playoff game, they jumped out to a handy lead against the 1st seeded Indianapolis Colts. The Colts piled on the points late in the game, but the Steelers still had the game in their grasp when popular running back Jerome Bettis fumbled the ball, for the first time all season.

As the Colts defender sprinted down the field to what looked like a certain game winning touchdown, an unlikely tackle from the Steelers quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, kept the Steelers ahead. A subsequent 46 yard field goal miss by the Colts, meant the Steelers became the first 6th seed to make it to the championship round (game to get into the Super Bowl. A feat curiously matched by both of this season’s losing championship game teams) in the NFL’s history.

They made a mockery of that record though, by not only going on to make the Super Bowl, but winning it too. It was easy to get behind them back then, because they had been thereabouts so many times before without success, and because Jerome Bettis was playing his last season.

However, that was the Steelers 5th Super Bowl title. That is the equal highest number of Super Bowl wins. That makes them pretty unsympathetic to the casual, once a year observer. On the other hand, the Cardinals have never won the Super Bowl. In the time that I have followed the NFL, they have never really made an impression at all.

They won the NFL title in 1947 as a Chicago based team, 20 years before the Super Bowl had even been created. Since then they have managed only a single playoff game win, until this season. One single playoff win in over 60 years! Even Fremantle will have probably won a second final by the time they have been around for that long.

So, Arizona has the long term history of pathetic performance that neutral observers love when picking a team to get behind for a day. It is not just a history of poor performance that they have going for them in the battle for neutral support, they are also vast underdogs in the betting for the match. That could also count against Arizona, if you prefer your Super Bowl team-for-a-day to actually win the game.

Now you should be ready to make a decision. What team will you, kind of, barrack for in the Super Bowl?