The epic conclusion to an entire season of poetic football picks. READ MORE

Want to be a pretentious show-off with your friends this weekend when the big game is on? But you don't know the difference between the infield fly rule and a two-line pass (or even to what sports they apply)? Well, it's OK. Sports radio enthusiast and noted laundromat-lurker Jim Behrle, who graced us with his haiku picks this NFL season, has once again written down a cheat sheet of smart-sounding things you can spout during the Super Bowl! Remember, always take a pause in the middle of every sentence for maximum gravitas. Don't choke on a nacho while you opine! READ MORE

Last week, Animal Planet announced the rosters for Puppy Bowl VIII, the annual canine celebration of unmotivated running in circles and dead serious butt-sniffery that represents the best and most successful bit of Super Bowl counter-programming on record. While the VIII'th iteration of the Puppy Bowl will stick to the format fans came to know through the first VII—smallish dogs with their tongues hanging out, tear-assing around a small field aimlessly and excitedly—Animal Planet also added some new elements this year, including a new human referee. This week saw the public announcement of another new twist: the addition of veteran NFL coaches to the mix. We were there at the press conference. At Animal Planet's request, we've embargoed the coaches' identity and redacted the questions. READ MORE

Rumors have circulated that Madonna, recording artist, will sing with M.I.A. at the Super Bowl. Nicki Minaj is also implicated. Both artists have had success, but can either bring back the monoculture? Leaving the fleeting sensation of a Lynn Hirschberg truffle-fry ambush aside, if M.I.A. were interviewed by Barbara Walters, who would care? Neither M.I.A., a self-consciously “edgy” singer of extraordinary gifts of curation, nor Nicki Minaj, a self-consciously outré rapper of extraordinary gifts full-stop, have cultivated personae beyond “hardworking,” “talented,” and (in M.I.A.’s case) “prone to ignorable political pronouncements.” It’ll be a good show, but no one should expect an iconic moment on par with Madonna heaving in a wedding gown or re-enacting Versailles to the tune of “Vogue.” Having marketable personality upon which to hang a moment is, now, left to those “famous-for-being-famous.” READ MORE

From time to time, we offer free editorial space to common folk with something to say. Today, the subject of a documentary which appeared during last night's Super Bowl discusses his strange compulsion. READ MORE

Since the Super Bowl is invisible to me, I didn't see any of its fabled advertisements—including this ad for Groupon here, that has apparently enraged everyone everywhere, what with its fairly completely misplayed sarcasm and tonedeafness and offbase first world self-mockery. (On the upside: at least now "everyone" has heard of Groupon. I guess.) The rest of the crop are rounded up here; gosh I did not miss very much in consuming important brand-related information, did I!

On Thursday morning, I went to the Paley Center for Media—which used to be the Museum of Television and Radio, and still kind of is, although it's now called the Paley Center for Media—and was brought down into a basement dubbing room, where I watched something that was long thought not to exist. It's a tape of the CBS broadcast of Super Bowl I, which was played in front of roughly 61,000 spectators and 30,000-plus empty seats at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, on January 15, 1967. Since then, the game has been famously unseen and unseeable, outside of some sideline footage shot by NFL Films. READ MORE

Just because you don't follow football and will only be watching the big game Sunday for the commercials and waiting around for "Glee" to be on doesn't mean you can't sound smart in front of your judgmental (probably terrible) friends and family. As a public service, we've let noted liver-in-his-mother's basement Jim Behrle once again collect some semi-brilliant things for you to spout out between nacho bites that might just make you sound like you've seen an American Football game before. He's been locked in his man-cave listening to sports talk radio for the past six months: he has plenty of wisdom to spare. READ MORE