by Slade Sohmer

It seems Osama screwed up our calendar too. First it was baseball in November and now it's February's turn to showcase football's greatest game. As the first ever post-January Super Bowl kicks off on Sunday, we'll turn our collective attention to the pageantry of sports and the imagination of advertising, the gaudiness at halftime and the celebration at the final gun.

Hopefully the Rams and the Patriots can provide us with some quality television this year. Like Megamaid, the big game has officially gone from suck to blow, with only one diamond – 2000's last-second thriller – in the last decade's rough. And some of those games were really rough, especially the Bills' last three debacles and Neil O'Donnell's color blindness against the 'Boys in 1996.

But we've had our fair share of classic memories over the years, some real sights to see. From the Bears' Super Bowl Shuffle to the Ickey Shuffle to the Bud Bowl to those talking frogs, the last Sunday in January has changed the face of both sports history and pop culture. Who will ever forget Montana to Taylor over the Bungals, Don Beebe stripping Leon Lett on his fat way to pay dirt, or Scott Norwood missing wide right down in Tampa? Who, who will ever forget when a fledgling pothead named Whitney Houston sang the Anthem or when Michael Jackson performed a halftime number about young children?

So to get you ready for the weekend's sports entertainment orgy, here's what you'll see and what you won't on the big day in Naw-leans.

You will see the final game of the John Madden/Pat Summerall broadcast pairing. After 21 years together (16 with full mental faculties), we'll be saying goodbye to the duo now that Senile Summerall has been forced into retirement. Some have cheered and some have jeered the move, but like Quaker Oats, it's the right thing to do. Madden will live to see another day, adding his vocabulary of Boom, Turducken, and Cankles to another play-by-play man. Summerall will see limited action – a euphemism for "he's on the five-year plan: don't die." It's all well and good though, since most of the time Pat is still finishing up the first down call when they're bringing on the punt team. After the Rams trounced the Packers, he said that the Rams were "headed back to Los Angeles to celebrate." So enjoy it, old men, it will be your last.

You won't see $2 million commercials for bankrupt companies or struggling dot-coms. You may get to the bottom of this "mlife" crap and Subway may unveil a new anorexic poster boy (don't you just want to see Jared and Clay Henry get together?). But this year you've got no shot of seeing those two loud, obnoxious men known as Rosie O' Donnell and Penny Marshall peddling their K-Mart schwag during the game. You won't see Shitface.com's ad because they went out of business last year with the rest of the Nasdaq. And there's absolutely no chance in hell that you'll see an Enron ad; they'll be busy changing the name of Enron Field in Houston to ManWe'reTotallyFucked Field.

You will see many camera shots of Kurt Warner's wife on Sunday (wait, that's not his mom?), probably clad in her usual blue thing with ruffles and fringes and feathers. That chick looks like a combination of my friend Berger's mom, Susan Powter, and Spike from the classic arcade game Arch Rivals (NBA Jam's predecessor). Listen, I can understand crowd shots of Pete Sampras' "one fine piece of ass" wife, but Mrs. Kurt Warner? Her hair is shorter than her husband's undergrowth and she cites the word of God more than an al Qaeda disciple. Send her off with Summerall; keep her off the air.

You won't see a quarterback controversy from either team. You will definitely not see Warner's backup Jamie Martin, whose name sounds more like a Lon Gisland girl in black pants than a professional football player. And I'm guessing that you will not see the $100 million-man Drew Bledsoe unless Tom Brady goes down and goes down hard. And Bledsoe has good reason to be pissed. Do you honestly think that if Johnny from Cobra Cai went down, Sensei Kreese would replace him with the "put him in a body bag" guy? Frankly, it's a load of crap. The Pats should lose for benching their franchise quarterback and for their karate being a joke.

You will see one cheesy halftime show aimed at topping last year's disaster. Keeping with the tradition of mixing different bands like last year's Aerosmith/N'Sync/Nelly combo, U2 may be joined by special guests Nickelback, Eddie Money, Usher, and The Culture Club. Or, if you prefer to ignore Larry Sanders and flip around during the break, you will see NBC's Playboy Playmates edition of "Fear Factor". In this contest, they test these playmates' biggest fears, which for all of them happens to be Hef keeling over and dying during very weird sex.

You won't see Bill Belichick get the Gatorade shower at the end of this year's game. Maybe this reporter is biased, maybe I'd like to see Billy-boy drawn and quartered, tarred and feathered, or maybe given the brick-on-a-string treatment and have it thrown off a very tall building. But there is no way the Pats win this game short of pulling a "Last Boy Scout" and shooting up the Rams squad. "Ain't life a bitch?"

But one thing is for sure: You will see the last football game for about seven months. And that just sucks.

Slade Sohmer is taking all bets on the Jets' in 2002. Direct propositions to sladeny@yahoo.com.

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