A sort-of guide to the Super Bowl

For a sport so popular, it’s also the most controversial. Compared to the physical poetry of mixed martial arts, American football often looks like the worst mosh pit ever.

Come Monday morning, your Twitter feed will probably be flooded by all things Super Bowl. From the halftime show, the advertisements, and yes, the football game itself, all of entertainment will converge into a primordial soup of mass commercialism. Before that happens, we have assembled all — well, some — of the facts you’ll need to know to keep you prepared for the oncoming storm.

This year’s Super Bowl is also known as the Weed Bowl

Before you say “Tito Sotto,” let us tell you why it’s called The Weed Bowl first. The two teams competing, the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks, are both from states that have legalized the use of marijuana. Coincidence? Or is this year’s Super Bowl the biggest case for using weed since Puff, the Magic Dragon? We don’t know because we’re too busy… not taking marijuana? While we have no official stance on the whole joint, this piece of trivia should clear things up when your Twitter timeline gets a new weed-pun or marijuana emoji every five seconds the morning of Feb. 3. It’s safe to say that whichever team comes out on top, the real winner of this year’s Super Bowl is Mary Jane.

For some reason Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers will perform at the halftime show

Last year’s Super Bowl halftime show gave us Beyoncé. The world has clearly not gotten over that. So this year, the organizers decided not to even attempt outdoing such an epic performance and instead brought in Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a pairing only an old white guy could think of. Both acts will also be coming to Manila in the near future with Mars performing his second solo show and the Peppers going to something called the “7107 International Music Festival.” If you haven’t bought tickets to their respective gigs yet, we suggest you watch the halftime show first to get a glance of what to expect. If you aren’t a fan of any of those two acts then just rewatch Bey’s Internet-breaking halftime show from last year.

Do not piss off richard sherman

Don’t know who Richard Sherman is? Do yourself a favor and Google search “Richard Sherman interview.” But please do not watch it with children because what you will see is one of the scariest 15 seconds the world has ever seen. In his team’s win against the San Francisco 49ers two weeks ago, Sherman took the mic (and the opportunity) to go all-WWE and let his inner Hulkamania run wild. Seattle’s star Cornerback went off in his post-game interview apparently angry about something said to him by one of the 49ers. “Don’t you ever talk about me! Don’t you ever talk about me!” said Sherman as viewers everywhere were left speechless and scared sh*tless. If that’s what he’s like when his team wins, we can’t even begin to imagine what will happen if the Seahawks lose the Super Bowl. May God have mercy on our souls if they do.

We will never completely understand american football

We’ve been fans of the National Football League for close to a decade now and to this day, we still don’t know why it’s called “football.” Disconnections like that keep popping up while we watch the games. For a sport so popular, it’s also the most controversial. Compared to the physical poetry of mixed martial arts, American football often looks like the worst mosh pit ever. Needless to say it’s quite possibly the most injury-prone sport. Concussions have become so frequent and regular that it’s synonymous with the NFL itself. It’s become a kind of initiation that you aren’t an NFL player if you haven’t gotten a concussion. Despite upgrades made to the players’ helmets, it is still an ever-present concern and problem. Yet the game persists and we continue to watch it. As hard as it is to admit, there is brilliance in all that brutality. It mixes the joyful chemistry of teamwork with the excitement one would find in a bar fight. In the end, we’ll never stop watching American football but we’d rather die than let our future kids play it.