It's Super Sunday, one of my favorite holidays of the year. Football, food loaded with fat and salt, entertainment, party atmosphere-- all staples of biggest sporting event on the calendar for Americans. The hype for this game is unmatched, which is probably why there is almost always some letdown. Normally this would be a 24-hour period in my life completely free from distractions and from any obligations to school or work. This, however, isn't a normal year. After the Birds let Arizona march the field for what ended up being the game-winning touchdown two sundays ago, I just can't get as pumped for the title game in Tampa. I have a 10-hour shift at work, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I can watch the game by myself here and there while on the clock, a situation that clearly reflects how I feel about SB43...it's in the background.
All day I've had the strangest feeling. It feels to me like I am missing an extremely important life event, but I don't know quite what the event is and I don't know why I'm missing it. It's like if my cousin had a wedding and I piled things on top of the invitation and months passed, then eventually I looked at my calendar when I woke up on February 1st, and said to myself, "Ry, you have something important today, but what the heck is it?" And on top of that, there is nothing else important today to supplant the thing I'm missing. I'm simply left to dwell on it all day, this lingering annoyance. Two weeks ago, I wrote about the energy that a true fan runs off of in the hours leading up to a huge game. Today, the test of one's fandom lies in their feelings on the Steelers-Cardinals matchup (which would have ridiculously low ratings by the way, if well, it wasn't the Super Bowl), specifically about if they can watch the game without constantly bitching in their own head about the NFC Championships "what ifs". You see, a true Eagles fan isn't over the loss because the season isn't over. You can't possibly watch a Warner deep out to Larry Fitz without thinking, where did we go wrong defensively in the first half. There's no way you can't think about the fact that we outplayed the Steelers in our 08 matchup with them, and maybe the matchup would go in our favor again. It will literally hurt as much as a helmet-less head crashing through a windshield watching Roethlisberger hold that Lombardi Trophy high. Just imagine Adrian Wilson yelling out to the faithful Cards fans at Raymond James that no one believed in them, and the Simmons article the following day about how the "no one believed in us" factor is now being bumped up to rule number 1 of his playoff manifesto. That could've been Donovan's line! He could've been the brunt of Simmons' favorite joke. Donovan could've been on that podium reading out the telephone numbers and addresses of the Dirty Thirty while slamming the trophy over Cataldi's head and my euphoria at that moment would not have been quelled (may actually have been enhanced). The image of Brian Dawkins crying his eyes out, speechless holding his SB MVP trophy after a 1-sack, 1-pick, 1-forced fumble game, is one that just will not leave me on this day. Shoot, I'd be crying my eyes out too. The only daze I'd be in would be one of utter joy if these things happened. But no, just an empty feeling there.
Today could have ended up being one of the 5 greatest of my life, I'm not sure what the others will end up being but I know if we had played in and won SB43, it would have been tatooed into the aformentioned list. Instead, I'm in this groggy, lackadaisical mood and feel as though I'm missing something important. This day is clearly the anti-Super, as greenbleeders everywhere again are left to think of what could have been...
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