Chiefs, Bucs kick off SB Week like no other — a bizarre, virtual facsimile
Super Bowl With a Smirk returns again this year beginning with a daily needling of the self-important NFL and the gravitas of its big game. Flying under the banner, “Make Fun, Not War,”
Smirk is an annual Super Bowl Week feature in the Miami Herald except years we forget to do it.
Super Bowl Week kicked off Monday all scaled back and not remotely like usual.
Actually, remotely perfectly describes this week as it builds to Sunday’s Tampa Bay-Kansas City game in Tampa.
Because of COVID-19 health and safety protocols this is the first Super Bowl that will feature no direct contact between the media and the teams, with interviews all week conducted virtually via Zoom starting Monday.
That means coaches and players will not be anywhere near the usual lowing herd of reporters asking the same stupid questions in close enough range to smell the bourbon on their breath.
And that media members will no longer be jousting for position to get near a bunch of bored players who’d rather not be there as they spew the usual cliched, banal responses.
For both sides, each wanting equally to fastforward to Sunday and skip the superfluous buildup, there is a phrase for these remote, virtual interview sessions:
“Dream come true.”
Just one year ago the Super Bowl was played in Miami to a sold-out crowd at Hard Rock Stadium. The coronavirus pandemic already had begun its invisible, deadly spread but Americans were blithely unaware because the government was keeping it a secret for another month so as not to alarm anybody.
One year later, now, in an exclusive Super Bowl Week Media Challenge, Smirk is offering a huge cash prize to any reporter who goes the entire week without writing or saying the words Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes or G.O.A.T.
That reminds me. The only good to come of yet another Brady Super Bowl win would be the abject sadness on the face of a defeated Bill Belichick.
Breaking news: Rudy
●
Giuliani has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the result of Sunday’s Super Bowl in anticipation of expected fraud.
Answer: New guidelines
● from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) say that if you must attend a Super Bowl party, everyone there should use noisemakers instead of cheering. Question: What is something with zero chance of ever happening?
Amanda Gorman, the
●
22-year-old poet featured at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, will reach another huge audience on SB Sunday by reciting an original poem as part of the televised pregame show. Smirk hears the poem may take a subtle jab or two at the NFL, as Amanda has been overheard asking friends, “What rhymes with Kaepernick?”
This is Super 55 to
●
Smirk, by the way, not
‘LV,’ until which time Miami Herald demographics folks tell me a substantial number of readers are ancient Romans from 450 A.D.
Actual headline at
●
CBSSports.com: “Where is the 2021 Super Bowl: Location, date, time, how to watch.” Thank you for the public service, CBS!
Is there anything worse
●
than the Pro Bowl? It was always a rhetorical question but now we have the answer: Yes, when the Pro Bowl is a virtual event played on a video game. It happened Sunday, in lieu of the canceled actual Pro Bowl, when the NFC team led by Cardinals QB Kyler Murray beat the AFC, 3212, in EA Madden ’21.
With SB attendance in
●
Tampa limited to 22,000 (one third of that vaccinated health care workers let in free), NFL security officials warn of an increased risk of counterfeit tickets. If, for example, the ticket you bought for $1,200 from that guy on a Moped seems extraordinarily small and reads, “AMC Theaters / Super Bowl with a sirkThe Croods: A New Age / Admit One” — you may have been had.
Cheapest Super Bowl ticket via VividSeats on Monday: $5,339. Hmm. If Smirk was one of those health-care workers holding a free ticket, he might be listening to offers. Just sayin’.
Details are emerging about the SB Halftime performance by Abel Tesfaye, the Canadian singer who goes by the stage name The Weeknd. There are rumors that, in lieu of singing, The Weeknd will spend all 12 minutes bitterly griping about his Grammy snub.
Super Bowl Party Tip du Jour: Best not to be involved in a big party on account of the pandemic. To assure sparse attendance, remind invitees that your party will be alcoholfree and the game broadcast radio-only.