Things Could Be Worse: Buffalo Could Be Playing

You suspect the Super Bowl is in trouble when, on the eve of the battle for domination of the planet, PR minions are dispatched to the media center to jostle snoozing journalists drooling into their laptop keyboards and awaken them for this exciting announcement:

We’re bringing in the mayors!

Well, better them than George Seifert and Bobby Ross, no?

Tale of the tape: San Diego’s Susan Golding is female, conservative and wagering Rubio’s fish tacos on the Chargers. San Francisco’s Frank Jordan is male, liberal and laying heavy Ghiardelli chocolates--10 pounds worth--on the Niners. Being politicians, they know how to give quote and sling mud. The potential for rancor--or at least a couple sentences worth dispatching to the office--brought the writers trickling into the conference room by the handful.

So Golding stood there, yellow lightning bolt pendant pinned to her lapel, and bragged about San Diego’s avocado production (“60% of all of California’s avocados”) and talked about “this being the year they threw incumbents out” and how that foreshadowed a Charger victory--overlooking the trivial fact that San Francisco hasn’t been the incumbent Super Bowl champion since 1990.

Jordan then got up, sporting a crimson 49er jersey with a white numeral “1”, and praised San Diego “as a great California city,” just not as great as San Francisco, where “we speak over 120 languages” and there are cable cars and a new modern art museum and 14 million visitors every year.

Then they posed for pictures and it was pretty much a wrap.

Thus ended Super Bowl week XXIX . . . or was it ZZZZ?

In with a whimper, out with a yawn.

Having already played the Game of the Century two weeks ago against Dallas, the 49ers should be congratulated and thanked for graciously showing up. It isn’t their fault that nobody outside the north and south margins of California and a few thrill-seeking gamblers have any interest in today’s game.

It isn’t even the Chargers’ fault, contrary to the nationwide trashing they’ve been taking. Somebody from the AFC had to be here. The locals have taken to dissing the Chargers because Dolphins-49ers would have been so much more fun, but the Dolphins had their chance and Dan Marino couldn’t put away Stan Humphries.

Who else would have been preferable?

Pittsburgh?

Cleveland?

At Friday night’s annual NFL Super Bowl bash--another “Throwbacks” promotion; Caligula’s Rome seemed to be the theme--one jaded reveler complained about how dull and hopeless the Chargers are, actually moaning, “We need the Bills.”

No, we don’t.

Let me repeat:

No. No. No. No.

The Bills were to the Super Bowl what Watergate was to the Presidency. Across America, suspicions were raised and expectations lowered--and it has been that way ever since.

Between the Bills and the Broncos, it’s amazing the Super Bowl hasn’t been killed off altogether. If the AFC has forsaken the ideal of winning the Super Bowl every odd decade or so, then teams like the Chargers are precisely what this game needs. New faces, thrilled to be here even if the point spread exceeds the legal drinking age.

By the time the Bills were losing their IIIrd Super Bowl, the thrill was long gone. For them, Super Bowl week became a dreaded assignment, the public humiliation before the public execution.

The Chargers, however, can lose 55-10 or 73-0 and return home clapping one another on the back, saying, “Well, at least we finally made it.” Lose or lose bigger, their season will be remembered by their fans as a rousing success. “San Diego Super Chargers”--a 30-year first.

As long as it remains predetermined to keep losing these things, the least the AFC can do is send happy victims. San Diego this year, how about Seattle next? Then Houston. Then Cleveland. Then Indianapolis. Maybe bring back the Jets.

Make someone’s season every season.

Besides, how much can a one-shot hurt?

Consider the plight of the Chargers. They are 19-point underdogs. Fair enough. Steve Young or Stan Humphries? Jerry Rice or Shawn Jefferson? Deion Sanders or Dwayne Harper? John Taylor or . . . (Editor’s note: NFL mercy rule has just been invoked.)

But, really, how bad can it be?

New England once lost a Super Bowl to Chicago, 46-10. Will it be worse than that? The Patriots rushed for seven net yards that day. Natrone Means, probably, will net at least 10.

How about 52-17, Dallas’ winning margin in Super Bowl XXVII? Worse than that? Or 55-10, the bloody mess that was San Francisco’s last Super Bowl victory--over Denver five years ago?

That Denver offense had John Elway, Bobby Humphrey and the Three Amigos.

This San Diego offense has Humphries, Means and the Three Dog Night.

OK, so maybe it can be that bad.

The Chargers have been chastised as a group for not one of them having the gumption to stand up and issue a Namathian we-will-win proclamation this week.

Again, not their fault.

When Namath made his guarantee in 1969, he had Don Maynard, Matt Snell and Randy Beverly on his side. Had he been stuck with these Chargers, opposing these Niners, Joe would have climbed off that lounge chair, thrown up his hands and declared, “You know, guys, those boys over in Las Vegas just might have a point.”

San Francisco 55, San Diego 9.