Hungering for more than merely the Super Bowl

If you get some time this Sunday afternoon, there’s a pretty good game on NBC between the Steelers of Pittsburgh and the Cardinals of Chicago, St. Louis, Phoenix and (inevitably) Guam. Starts about 3 and will end by midnight Thursday, maybe later. The Pittsburgh faction would seem to have the edge, though the Cardinals have this leggy receiver, Fitzgerald, who looks like he could pluck a penny off the moon.

There is much to love about this year’s Super Bowl -- yet like many new relationships, you have to work at it a little. Most obvious is the Kurt Warner-Troy Polamalu tete-a-tete, the field commander vs. the wrecking ball. Both play as if they have five minutes to live.

Polamalu, the one with the girlie hair and shoulders like cinder blocks, leads one of the most adept defenses since the Army of the Potomac. The NFL will breathe a big sigh of relief if, when the game is over, Polamalu hasn’t devoured several of the opposing players. Or braided all their hair.

It has been a very interesting year for the mother of all leagues. It has been a season of overzealous refs and aging quarterbacks and teams coming back from the brink: Dolphins, Jets and the Cardinals themselves.

It has been a season of bone-rattling hits, perhaps the most notable of which was when uber-fan Todd Kobus of Attleboro, Mass., bolted onto the field Dec. 21 and tackled Patriots linebacker Junior Seau.

“I’m just a big fan of Junior Seau,” Kobus explained later. “I meant to give him a big hug.”

The pretrial hearing is set for Feb. 17.

That’s certainly not the weirdest occurrence this season.

For example, receivers and tight ends suddenly decided -- just out of the blue -- that they would hurdle anyone impudent enough to try to tackle them.

You see this now in nearly every game, a defensive back flailing at the opponents’ ankles and the receiver simply leapfrogging right over him.

I look forward to seeing this trend play out, to that moment when some savvy strong safety will periscope straight up and send the receiver into the area where the marching band sits. What a delicious few seconds that will be. Pure physics. Sweet revenge.

Speaking of delicious, I made this stupid, stupid vow not to eat anything till the Dodgers sign Manny Ramirez, and now I’m facing the biggest feast of the year with an empty stomach and all the willpower of Warren Sapp.

Like you, I spend most of the year trying not to cave into my baser instincts, and then along comes this Super Bowl, this national Mardi Gras, and I find myself spread-eagled on a table full of incredible food. One Super Bowl, I think it was XXXVIIICDNBT$, I flung myself into a giant bowl of chili, nailing a perfect reverse half twist on the way in.

Point is, football makes me hungry.

Heck, everything makes me hungry.

Now I’ve got this Manny hunger strike hanging over my head. Fortunately, I didn’t say anything about drinking.

If you really love football, I just dare you to try to watch this game without a beaker full of happy juice in your hand. Because at some point early on, I can almost guarantee that someone (probably a mom) will stand right in front of the TV and ask: “OK, now which one is Kobe?”

It can be a tough day for real fans. Many viewers will show more interest in the commercials than the game, and I always seem to be the one who has to buy the last 20 squares in the Super Bowl pool.

Then, if tradition holds, round about the third quarter someone will fall into a food-induced coma, probably me. I will flop backward on the couch and my eyes will roll up into my head and my breathing will become labored.

I will awake three hours later.

“Jeez, what quarter is it?” I’ll grumble. “Still the third,” someone will answer. “Hmmm, any more wings?” I’ll ask.

Lord, I love the Super Bowl. I should know better, and late Sunday I may indeed suffer from Super Bowl remorse, where I scold myself for getting my hopes up so high.

I’ll wonder for a while whether the afternoon would’ve been better spent reading a great biography (Halas? Shula?) or watching “Dr. Strangelove” for the 400th time. I’ve done the math and determined that only one out of every 12 Super Bowls is really any good. Yet, I celebrate it the way I do Christmas, hoping faith and good deeds are their own rewards.

Oh, what a day. Honey, hide the good wine and secure the children. The Super Bowl is almost here.

--

Erskine’s Man of the House column appears Saturday in the Home section.

--

chris.erskine@latimes.com