Washington Post (blog) - Anyone but New York

New York City

You're not going to believe this. For the second year in a row, my job requires me to travel on Super Bowl Sunday. Super Bowl Friggin' Sunday. Last year, I had to fly from L.A. to Dallas for a meeting first thing the next morning. This year, I have to fly to New York for the same reason. (And, no, I can't fly Monday morning because of flight times. And, yes, I could fly out on Saturday, but I'd rather spend the day with my lovely wife and increasingly silly daughter, who are the only people who can stand being in the same room with me these days.) Now, there is a great benefit to flying on Super Bowl Sunday: because so few people are flying that day, there's a decent chance that you can get an entire row of airline seats to yourself or, even better, an upgrade. (Note to anyone reading who works for Delta: an upgrade would be greatly appreciated.) Also, the flight attendants tend to be a little more generous with the pretzels when there are only four passengers. The downside, of course, is that you can miss the game depending on your flight times or delays, or you can end up watching it by yourself in a hotel room -- which is what I will likely end up doing. Yes, I may be in New York City on Super Bowl Sunday, watching the local team of which I happen to be a fan, the Jets, play in the Super Bowl for the first time in 40 years. Sounds pretty exciting, doesn't it? Well, it would be except for this fact: I don't want the Jets to make it to the Super Bowl, only to get slaughtered by the Saints or the Vikings, and you shouldn't either. Getting trounced in the Super Bowl is worse for a fan than not making the Super Bowl at all. I could spend a few paragraphs discussing the psychology of this phenomenon, but I won't; you know it's true, so I won't say more. (And if you don't believe me, please feel free to ask the nearest Bills fan.) No one wants to see a bad Super Bowl anyway, with the possible exception of the fans of the team doing the trouncing. As much as I hope to be wrong, I suspect that is precisely what I believe would happen if the Jets make the Super Bowl. They would get trounced, it will be an ugly game, and no one will enjoy themselves except for the fans of the Vikings or the Saints. I understand why the NFL would love to see the Jets in the Super Bowl. It's a great story -- first time in a Super Bowl since the 1960s. There's a rookie coach with a big mouth, a rookie quarterback with occasional jitters, a rookie running back with an oddly spelled first name, a troubled wideout with occasional butter fingers and the best defense in the league -- Revis. Plus, you get the one-two punch of a New York team that also happens to be an underdog. Match the Jets up against the Vikings, and you have another story: the Brett Favre saga. Unfortunately for Jets fans, the story ends like this: Vikings 24, Jets 3. Match the Jets up against the Saints, and the story ends the same way: Saints 24, Jets 3. (And please, Jets fans, don't feel the need to write in to tell me what an idiot I am. If you are a real Jets fan, you know that this is precisely how we must think in order to remain sane.) No, if you want to have a great game, a great matchup, a nailbiter like last year's Super Bowl -- which I watched in a movie theater in Dallas while eating cold nachos and chicken fingers -- you need the Colts. You need Manning against Favre, or Manning against Brees. Either would be a great game. But, simply because of what the city of New Orleans has endured the past few years, and what it would mean to the city and its team to win a Super Bowl, the best match up is Colts-Saints. Which is what I believe we're going to get. But if the Jets sneak in, I'm happy to be wrong. And if they happen to knock off the Saints or Vikings, I'll be even happier to be wrong. And I'll be in the perfect place to celebrate, New York City. In my hotel room. Eating all the pretzels I can talk the Delta flight attendants into giving me.