The Tale of Super Bowl 43: No Favorite, No Underdog—Casual NFL Fans Are Lost

Prepare for the fluff, fellow football fans! It's time for a marketing blitz that would make Dick LeBeau jealous!

The media is starting to gather every irrelevant piece of information they can find to make the game more appealing for casual football fans.

It's time for two weeks of heart-warming stories about rich athletes and their humble beginnings in crime-ravaged communities; it's time for profile pieces on the old man who made his team's high draft pick obsolete.

It's time to hear about Ken Whisenhunt facing the team he helped win a Super Bowl three short years ago. It will be a tale of redemption for a man who took a job with a team in an endless abyss of misery and defeat.

And for safe measure, there should be a good race-related story about Mike Tomlin's skin color and the obstacles he's had to transcend to arrive at the grandest stage of them all.

There will be history lessons, inconsequential statistics, and interviews with childhood coaches who knew what their players were capable of all along!

Unfortunately, none of the casual fans these stories are for will care!

Because no matter what dominates our airwaves these next few weeks, the football fan that doesn't really know football is confused.

No one can reasonably pick a new favorite team over the next two weeks.

Casual NFL Fans Don't Belong

The playoffs were too unpredictable for any casual fan to actually mount a bandwagon without being noticed.

The Titans' and Giants' bandwagons came to an abrupt end as people settled in. The Panthers' and Colts' bandwagons went up in flames.

The Steelers' recent Super Bowl victory may have some people carrying over from the 2005 season—but many fans remain lost.

They recognize some of the faces. They had some of them on their fantasy teams. But they have no idea what to expect, and they absolutely hate it.

In their eyes, this is the worst Super Bowl ever.

But real football fans know better.

The Unpredictable Nature of It All

Keep your stories. Find your fluff, media—broadcast it, run it eight times a day, and love every second of it.

The only story that matters in Super Bowl 43 is the one that hasn't been written yet.

This is unlike any Super Bowl any of us have ever seen.

Every year there is a clear-cut favorite and the underdog team with the potential to make it interesting. There's a team everyone can make a compelling argument for and support with absolute confidence.

No one has that level of comfort heading into February. Does the concept of an upset actually exist?

For some it might be easy to go with the Steelers and their top-ranked defense.

They were the second-best team in the AFC throughout the regular season, and the fingerprints on their last Lombardi trophy are still fresh.

Everyone knows what Pittsburgh brings to the field. The hard part for their opponents is actually working around it.

But on the other side is an Arizona Cardinals team no one recognizes. And that's what gives this Super Bowl the potential to rank among the greatest.

The Cardinals' 2008 season has been a tale of three teams. There was the aerial powerhouse everyone recognized. Then there were the inept late-season performances that made them look like the worst playoff team ever.

And then there's this January team who plays strong defense and runs the ball well, yet remains most easily identifiable by their unexpected quarterback and his unstoppable wide receiver.

No. Advantage. Exists. 

This is the most evenly-matched, yet potentially-lopsided Super Bowl the NFL could have possibly provided for NFL fans. The cast of characters is familiar, but it's not recognizable to the casual fans who own Tom Brady and Peyton Manning jerseys.

And the Monday-morning football fans by the water cooler can't stand it!

Angel Navedo is the Jets-Examiner" target="_blank">Examiner for the New York Jets, and the Head Writer at  NYJetsFan.com. Some of his work can also be found on MyGridironSpace.com—a premier social networking site built exclusively for NFL fans.

He can be reached here.