It’s early February, which means it’s time to start caring about American football again.
While 364 (or in this case, 365) days of the year we might make fun of our brothers across the pond for their stop-start, misleadingly-named sport, the Super Bowl is different.
The NFL title-decider is an excuse to meet up with your mates, drink lots of beer, eat a mountain of food and regret it all at work on Monday.
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But a lot can change in a year in the NFL. Players retire, coaches get fired and new superstars emerge.
So dust off your old jersey and fill up on “chips” as we give you the crash course to let you bluff your way through this year’s game.
The Teams
Unless you’re one of those fans who is happy to watch a sporting event as a neutral, simply enjoying the incredible athleticism on display, you’re going to have to choose a team to back on Sunday night.
The Carolina Panthers have lost just one game all year and are the bookies’ favourites for this match-up, so that’s the bandwagon you should probably jump on. But the Denver Broncos are not to be written off entirely. Both teams boast intimidating defences that led them to the number one spot in their respective conferences.
The Panthers swept aside the favourite team of recent NFL glory-hunters, the Seattle Seahawks, with a first-half assualt in their first playoff game, denying Seattle a chance at their third straight Super Bowl appearance. Then they eased past a tough Arizona Cardinals team with a straightforward 49-15 win.
Denver’s playoff run was a little more troubled, as they needed 11 late points in the final three minutes of their divisional round game to get past the your dad’s favourite team, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In the AFC Conference Championship, the Broncos beat defending champions the New England Patriots (aka the favourite team of glory-hunters from a decade ago) after preventing Tom Brady from scoring on a two-point conversion play with just 17 seconds remaining.
The Quarterbacks
Cam Newton is the hottest new thing in the NFL after finally discovering the form that saw him taken first overall in the 2011 NFL draft, the NFL’s version of picking teams during play time.
The Carolina quarterback has angered opposing fans this year with his love for big celebrations after touchdowns – which makes it even easier to wind up your mates if he scores.
On the other side, Peyton Manning is looking to equal the Super Bowl record of his younger brother Eli, who has somehow won two titles.
The Halftime Show
The most important thing to remember about the Super Bowl Halftime Show is that no matter your opinion, you must tell everyone around you that you did not enjoy it. If you want to really go in on it, make sure to go on Twitter and make several posts about how little you care about the thing you are watching at 3am.
The entertainment for this year will be provided by Coldplay, with a little help from Beyonce and Bruno Mars. It’s Coldplay’s first appearance at America’s biggest game, but Beyonce (2013) and Mars (2014) have both been there before, so expect their experience to shine through.
If you watched the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers in 2013, you will no-doubt remember Beyonce’s performance being so powerful that it actually caused a power-outage during the second half.
This left British fans to consider whether they should just go to bed instead of watching two teams wait for the power to come back on like a bunch of kids sitting at the side of the road waiting for the passing cars to stop interrupting their game of three-and-in.
In the end, the game went down to the final minute and a lot of us called in sick the next day.
Food
The most important part of any Super Bowl experience is the food. While pizza is a popular choice among the uninitiated, a true Super Bowl aficionado will know that a more substantial reserve is required. This isn’t football, it’s American football. Everything is bigger.
Forget Fergie time, this one will take around four hours – maybe more if there’s another blackout or the first overtime in the history of the event. We’re not saying to dismiss pizza altogether (obviously pizza is irreplaceable) but you need to see it as part of your food supply as opposed to the entire thing.
Nachos and salsa are a classic for a reason. They’re simple, tasty and just enough work that you can’t shovel them down your gob at the speed of sound. The spiciness of the salsa should be directly related to how much you want to drink.
If you’ve got a bit more time – or just a late takeaway that does them nearby – Buffalo wings have been the undisputed champion on of Super Bowl snacks since their invention by bored New Yorkers in the 1960s.
The Day After
If you haven’t already booked the Monday off after the Super Bowl, then you’ve got two options. You can either call in sick with the least convincing excuse of all time, or power through and deal with the consequences.
If you have booked the day off, well done on being more organised than the rest of us, who are set for a world of pain on Monday.
