Scooter Hobbs

Just a hunch, but I’m guessing today is Super Bowl Sunday.

It’s probably the Chiefs and the Bay Bucs.

It’s a football game, the only one that we designate with Roman numerals, such as LV, I guess it is, today.

But of course it’s much more than that.

This is the one Sunday each year when even football fools are required to care, to tune in, to take a deep psychological gaze into the soul of Americana and what binds us as one people, even setting aside differences long enough to pray for an entertaining contest and hopefully at least one halftime wardrobe malfunction.

Anyway, the reason I know that this is Super Bowl Sunday (LV) is that, right on schedule, my email has absolutely been hyperkinetic all week and may well explode like the Hindenburg before kick off.

Hazard of the trade, you suppose, but somewhere out there is this ginormous mass email list containing every sports writer too lazy to come up with their own column ideas and most of corporate America, particularly the marketing arm, is at the ready with helpful suggestions.

Most even attempt to be personalized .

“Hi Scooter. Hope you are doing well! The Superbowl is coming up — which team are you rooting for? In the meantime, I would like to follow up on the opportunity to …”

Hold on, buddy. None of your business. Besides, we’re sports columnists here. We don’t root for teams — it’s far easier to just make fun of them.

But it’s quite a cross section.

Still, though this an unscientific guess, I’d say the most active of them seems to be in the nation’s gooey, processed cheese industry.

Super Bowl Sunday must be to cheese dip what Black Friday is to Chatty Cathy and PlayStation 4. There were several recipe suggestions, one of which the literature describes as a “complex but approachable flavor.”

As opposed to a simple and Step-Away-from-the-Cheese flavor.

My first thought was that a communal cheese dip in a pandemic is not the best way to practice social distancing.

What about double dipping?

Not to worry. One even suggested making small, individual servings of cheese dip, possibly personalized little tins. Sadly parts were not included.

The Famous Idaho Potato commission checked in, of course, even had an answer for the more adventuresome hosts. Something called gnocchi, which I thought existed only on fancy menus. Unfortunately, this one lost me at “involves using special tools like a food mill and a pastry scraper.”

But most of the food industry is part of this mad, mad marketing dash. Can’t get to all of them, but let’s just say this: If there are any chickens left in America on Monday, none of them will have wings.

It’s more than just a food fight, however. Many emails have agendas, not so hidden, most offering to set you up with an interview with their resident expert.

One, for instance, has done a detailed study, using big numbers and a few decimal points, and come to the startling conclusion that NFL owners are richer than the rest of us, way richer than any of us, mostly billionaires. The term “insane amount of wealth” was tossed about.

Really? Who’d of thunk it? So you’re saying that you can’t just waltz into Dollar General and buy the Raiders or if Jerry Jones puts the Cowboys up for sale it’s not likely to be on eBay?

OK then. Got that.

Another’s research has determined that NFL coaches who have won Super Bowls, on average, make more money than those that have not (in fact, many of the latter get fired).

That story begs for more details, but offhand I’d say sometimes life just isn’t fair.

Still, maybe you, too, can soon be in the market for, say, the Saints, or a least a fleur de lis or three.

At least two financial institutions have suggested that the Super Bowl should be a perfect reminder to start thinking about that retirement stash. Operators are standing by.

Well, thank you very much, but some of our retirement plans at the moment are based on the score of one of today’s quarters ending with numbers ending in 2 and 9.

Also, I don’t know how that jibes with, as several emails recommended, the notion that it’s also the perfect time to buy a TV the size of an RV, just for the game.

And whatever happened to that Nigerian Finance Minister anyway?

Failing that, there was this email that “wanted to reach out and see if you needed any fun Super Bowl prop bets. We have A TON … and I’d be happy to share them with you. I can also pass along written commentary.”

And, of course, you can’t say Super Bowl without saying Brian Bosworth.

Oh, wait, sorry. You can’t say Super Bowl without saying Tom Brady … 10 times real fast.

But Bosworth’s publicist wanted you to know that he will soon be embarking on a screaming TV series called “Bucket List.”

I’m guessing it’s not about buckets.

Brady will be playing in the Super Bowl.

Everbody knows that, another email states, “but few know the role that neuroscience has played in keeping Brady productive.”

My first inclination is that neuroscience is probably harder than rocket science.

But the inventor of “BrainHQ,” which Brady evidently has been a practitioner of for lo these many years, was of course available for interviews. It was promised that he could explain it all to me.

I think I answered that one pretty simply:

You want to bet?

l

Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.comScooter Hobbs (American Press)