{"id":516,"date":"2010-02-04T16:58:59","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T14:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=516"},"modified":"2015-04-27T21:24:43","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T19:24:43","slug":"the-super-bowl-more-than-a-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/the-super-bowl-more-than-a-game\/","title":{"rendered":"The Super Bowl: More than a game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you know what will happen this February 7? Every American does. To many, the date is as big as Thanksgiving, as important as any birthday, and as bombastic as the Fourth of July. It&#8217;s <b>Super Bowl Sunday<\/b>, the day of the championship game in American football.<\/p>\n<p>This year&#8217;s contest brings back the winners from three years ago, the Indianapolis <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e308440\">Colts<\/span>, to play the New Orleans <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e308827\">Saints<\/span> in Miami. They&#8217;ll play only one game, which technically involves just 60 minutes of play; but it&#8217;ll take all day to <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e308c15\">determine<\/span> the winner.<\/p>\n<p>First, there&#8217;s a four-hour pre-game show, with commentary. The game itself is broken up by the halftime show (with <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e308ff6\">cheerleaders<\/span> and rock stars). After the game come the post-game interviews and analysis. The more you understand about what&#8217;s happening, the easier it is to enjoy.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"1\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"5\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<h2>Expressions from football: 5 verb phrases<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>To <b>kick off<\/b> an event is to start it. (&#8220;Let&#8217;s kick things off by giving a warm welcome to Mr. Flanders.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>To <b>tackle<\/b> a problem is to approach it with a strategy and enough <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e3093e0\">momentum<\/span> to try to solve it. (&#8220;They hope to tackle climate change.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>To <b>drop the ball<\/b> is to fail to do something, usually by not paying attention. (&#8220;Did Obama drop the ball on jobs?&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>To <b>watch from the sidelines<\/b> is to observe a situation without getting involved. (&#8220;China and India watched from the sidelines.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>To <b>be out of bounds<\/b> (meaning off the playing field) is to be beyond what is acceptable. (&#8220;Your behavior is totally out of bounds!&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>At the <b>kickoff<\/b> (start of the game), the teams face each other on the <b>50-yard line<\/b> (the midpoint of the field, which is 100 <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e3097c6\">yards<\/span> long). The ball is <b>passed<\/b> (thrown) or <b>punted<\/b> (kicked) to a player, whom the opposing team tries to <b>tackle<\/b> (bring down by physical force).<\/p>\n<p>Whenever a player drops the ball, the clock is stopped and all the players must again form their <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e309bae\">line of scrimmage<\/span> parallel to where the ball has landed. Because this happens often, and because the direction of play goes back and forth, the ball rarely <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e309f96\">travels<\/span> very far. Between plays lasting a few seconds each, the television network will <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30a37f\">dutifully<\/span> try to fill the time with <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30a76a\">instant-replay<\/span> <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30ab4d\">footage<\/span> and 60 to 70 <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30af36\">commercials<\/span>. To see just the game itself \u2014 live \u2014 you will need to <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30b31f\">allow<\/span> three to four hours.<\/p>\n<p>Because the <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30b706\">pace<\/span> is so relaxed, viewers surround themselves with friends or family and plenty of food and drink: beer, cola, chips and <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30baef\">pretzels<\/span> are the minimum. There&#8217;s lots of time to talk, <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30bed6\">ponder<\/span> the many <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30c2bf\">arcane<\/span> rules of the game, and share those exciting moments when a player \u2014 often the <b>quarterback<\/b> (the main runner and real-time strategist) \u2014 does manage to carry the ball all the way to the <b>end zone<\/b> for a <b>touchdown<\/b>.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"1\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"5\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<h2>Expressions from football: 5 noun phrases<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>An <b><span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30c6a5\">armchair<\/span> quarterback<\/b> is someone who gives unwanted advice. (&#8220;The armchair quarterbacks can think up their own business strategy.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>A <b>Monday-morning quarterback<\/b> is someone who uses <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30ca8e\">hindsight<\/span> to <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30ce75\">deduce<\/span> what should have been done. (&#8220;There were lots of Monday-morning quarterbacks after the election.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>A <b>cheerleader<\/b> is a person who <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30d25f\">advocates<\/span> something in an obvious way. (&#8220;He is a cheerleader of the green economy.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>A <b>wardrobe <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30d645\">malfunction<\/span><\/b> \u2014 named for a stunt gone wrong during a halftime show in 2004 \u2014 is what happens when a piece of clothing fails to cover your body. (&#8220;Do you have a safety pin? I&#8217;m having a slight wardrobe malfunction.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>A <b>football <span id=\"tooltip551ea7e30da2e\">widow<\/span><\/b> is a woman left alone a lot because her husband or boyfriend spends all his time watching sports. (&#8220;Poor Jenny! She&#8217;s become a real football widow.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p><b>You can watch the game<\/b> on <a title=\"Sportschau live: American football (Das Erste)\" href=\"http:\/\/programm.daserste.de\/pages\/programm\/detail.aspx?id=O5uMmXtHY%2b1D4kkIBFJiKg%3d%3d\" target=\"_blank\">Das Erste<\/a> from 11:35 p.m. Sunday to 4:30 a.m. Monday, Central European Time. Kickoff is half an hour after midnight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you know what will happen this February 7? Every American does. To many, the date is as big as Thanksgiving, as important as any birthday, and as bombastic as the Fourth of July. It&#8217;s Super Bowl Sunday, the day of the championship game in American football. This year&#8217;s contest brings back the winners from three years ago, the Indianapolis <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/the-super-bowl-more-than-a-game\/\">&#8230; >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[110,65],"tags":[16,66,121,86,134],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1643,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions\/1643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}