Super Bowl XLVII

I just want to stop by and say a few things about the Super Bowl, which is happening later on today.  Not specifically about the game itself, not the X's and O's of it all, but more about what this game, and what previous games have meant to me.

I spent a lot of time growing up watching football with my dad.  We would watch on Sundays  and that included most of the Super Bowls (up until was about 17 or 18, at least).   As I've grown older, I still make a point to watch football on Sundays  because it's just what I've always done, even if this game drives me a little crazy with all the stupid stoppages and over thinking some of the rules and instant replays.  No matter what, watching NFL football is important to me.


Today's game is especially huge for me.  One of my earliest memories of watching football with my dad was watching Super Bowls XXIII and XXIV (that's 23 and 24 for you non-Romans). If you know anything about the NFL, those games were won by the San Francisco 49ers.  Young impressionable five and six year old Brad watched those games, and what I witnessed was the 49ers winning in dramatic fashion and in blowout fashion respectively.  Young, impressionable Brad chose the 49ers as his/my favorite team then, especially from the blowout one.  I said "these guys are the best, they win every year, that's my favorite team!"  So I jumped on the bandwagon then, and never jumped off.  I paid a visit to a few other bandwagons here and there (the 1998 Denver Broncos, the 1995 Green Bay Packers mainly) but whenever anyone asked me throughout my life who my favorite team was, my answer was the 49ers.  Today, they go for their sixth Super Bowl victory, and I wasn't sure when I'd see this day again.

Things got pretty bleak in the old Niner Nation back in the mid to late 2000's.  That puts it mildly.  They were downright awful for quite a few years, yet I still wore the shirt.  I still wore the hat.  I still went to the bar every Sunday and ordered beer out of guilt for taking up a seat, and watched this team fall to the depths of the league.  The 49ers, my 49ers, didn't have a winning record from 2003 until 2011.  Yet I watched them every week (or just about every week) and remained hopeful that they would get it together and spark something and do something and be better.  It finally happened last year, and they fell just short of the Super Bowl.

But not this year, baby.  It's finally happened!  The 49ers are back in the Super Bowl for the first time since I was 11.  And I remember that Super Bowl fondly.  They crushed the San Diego Chargers.  I remember watching the game at my dads with my brother and we were placing bets on which 49er defender would have the next interception, Deion Sanders, Merton Hanks or Tim McDonald.  I also remember these were the days when the 49ers wore those stupid ugly white pants.  I still have the recording of Super Bowl XXIX somewhere on VHS.  I should watch that sometime.  I bet the commercials would be worth the watch.

So I won't be on my dad's couch to watch today's game. I wish i was. I'll be on my couch with my daughter and a few friends.  What's great about this game is I don't know any Ravens fans.  In fact, I can't say I've ever met a Ravens fan before.  So there's no one to talk smack should the unthinkable happen.  Also, I've not really seen a whole lot of 49ers haters around anymore, mostly because they've been so bad for so long, everyone just sort of forgot how how annoyingly dominant they were for 25 years.  Right now I'm just happy they made it back to the big game.  Someday, Lions fans.  Someday you'll know how sweet this feels.

GO NINERS!  WOOOOO!