Today is the Super Bowl XLV between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers and the world will be going party crazy over this.
The headline on The Daily, the first iPad-only newspaper, says it best: "Blue Collar Bowl."
For the last 25 years or longer, the Super Bowl and the NFL in general has been Hollywood-ized. From the Super Bowl Shuffle to the Hollywood actor good looks of winning quarterbacks like Joe Montana to Tom Brady marrying a Hollywood actress. And I think people are sick of it. I remember a time of the Steel Curtain, the tough-as-nails Oakland Raiders and the bust-your-gut Miami Dolphins. Football used to be a tough guy's sport. Players you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Ugly guys spitting blood. But, for better or worse, the league was invaded by players like "Neon" Deion Sanders. I don't mean to disrespect players like Sanders, who is being inducted into the Hall Of Fame and deservedly so.
But, I think are gravitating to people they can relate to. Who can relate to someone who goes to Hollywood parties and dates a star every week? Sports figures like Tony Romo and Alex Rodriguez have felt the public's animosity toward them for that type of lifestyle. That's also fueling the public's liking for Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers who is able to step out of the shadows of the more flashy Brett Favre. Even Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger seems like your dumb cousin who, no matter how many dumb things he does, can't seem to figure out how to stay out of trouble. The defense on both teams seem like throwbacks to the 1970s with the long-flowing hippie hair, the nasty beards and the ugly mugs (except for Troy Polamalu).
I'm going with the Pittsburgh Steelers but it will still be a great Super Bowl if Aaron Rodgers can pull it off.