Super Bowl 2015: Pregame Controversies an Appropriate Capper to Chaotic Season

The lead-up to Super Bowl XLIX has been a perfect microcosm of the 2014 season.

We've spent more time laughing like seventh-graders when someone mentions the word "balls" than discussing the actual game. We've generated two straw-man controversies, each carrying its own brand of ridiculousness.

#DeflateGate means nothing. Patriots fans who feel their team is being unfairly persecuted in the court of public opinion are 100 percent correct. Had Spygate never happened—hell, had this been the Cardinals or something—we'd have never even glanced at this story a second time. Instead, it's become yet another opportunity for the "moral authority police" to remind us all of their insufferability.

Sound familiar? It should, because we can draw a direct comparison to Marshawn Lynch's offensive, UNPROFESSIONAL I TELLS YA silence with the media. What started as a genuine discomfort from Lynch's perspective has become a farce. Lynch knows he's going to make more money in endorsements by offering five-word sound bites than the NFL could ever fine him. The media plays along despite knowing how this all was going to go, all so they can feign some sense of moral outrage while generating page views—even if their hate-reads are passed along on Twitter simply to be laughed at.

(Boycott Skittles? Seriously?)

We can attribute some of this to Super Bowl week fatigue. Every year there are storylines drawn out long past their usefulness, simply because it's almost impossible to find new stories every day when discussing the same two teams.

But it's also appropriate that the biggest storylines before the biggest football game on the planet have nothing to do with football.

In 2014, that's been the case from jump street, though stemming from much more serious stories that deserved attention. Ray Rice became Adrian Peterson. Peterson became outrage over the incompetency of Roger Goodell. Goodell became a figurehead for the ongoing uncertainty with the sport of football, a sport with deeply disconcerting medical reports and declining participation at the youth levels.

It may have happened long ago, but 2014 was the first season I realized just how secondary actual football has become when discussing National Football League business.

If the game itself mattered, we'd have long moved on from Lynch and #DeflateGate. We'd be discussing perhaps the best on-paper Super Bowl matchup of this century.

Seahawks-Patriots is everything we wanted Seahawks-Broncos to be but secretly knew wouldn't happen. New England has the balance and stylistic profile of a team that can give the historically great Seahawks defense fits. Seattle can minimize the Darrelle Revis effect—perhaps the biggest reason this is the best Patriots team since 18-1—by punching the Patriots in the mouth with Lynch.

Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

According to Odds Shark, the Patriots are considered a one-point favorite, tying Super Bowl VII for the lowest number in history. I wouldn't be surprised if the game is a pick-em by kickoff. Madden, WhatIfSports and PredictionMachine.com (via Shutdown Corner's Kristian Dyer) all ran their independent simulators and came back with a one-possession game. Every objective measure has this game earmarked as a thriller.

And even if you move beyond the actual football, this game should have been a marketing landmine for the NFL.

Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, perhaps the greatest quarterback-coach combination in history, are going for their fourth ring and playing in their sixth Super Bowl. Russell Wilson is one win away from becoming his generation's Brady, taking home two rings in his first three seasons. The Seahawks are a win away from potential dynasty status in the parity/salary-cap age. In Brady and Richard Sherman you have two of the most recognizable faces in all of sports going head-to-head for the sport's biggest prize.

The game itself may wind up being terrible, but there are dozens of reasons to be compelled by the matchup. Yet here we are still needling Goodell about DeflateGate. Here we are hissy-fitting about the one dude unwilling to talk to media when there are literally more than 100 others perfectly willing to say real words. The only inflation we should be discussing is about the rapidly expanding self-importance of those who have taken two shrug-worthy stories and turned them into bully pulpits.

(Warning: Video contains graphic NSFW content.)

It's a shame, but here's the thing: I really can't get all that mad. I actually...kind of like it. I probably had way more fun watching Lynch and Rob Gronkowski playing video games with Conan O'Brien than I will all Sunday night. I know I had more fun watching Lynch give branded interviews to Progressive and Skittles, essentially giving the media his favorite touchdown celebration in the process.

It's much more fun to talk to a #DeflateGate truther or troll-sensitive Patriots fans than, well, pretty much anything. The NFL has become a spectacle of WWE-like proportions in the runup to the Super Bowl. We have heels, babyfaces, malfeasant management and constant complaints from fans about the product not being what it used to be. And this is all real.

The Patriots may have deflated balls to gain an advantage; media members actually think Lynch owes them something; Russell Wilson may actually come from the same robotics company that created John Cena.

And somewhere in all that mess, a football game will be played. Possibly a Mankind vs. Undertaker Hell in a Cell classic. Certainly something compelling enough to almost make the whole thing worth it.

Then next year we'll do it all over again. Different controversies, different villains, different heroes, different (and hopefully hotter) takes. All culminating in one big event that ties up the loose storylines that have been building all year.

None of this may be the version of the NFL we want. But it's time to get used to our new reality.

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter.