Make English The Official Language Of The Super Bowl, 2011 Edition

Planto English persona lingua of Eximius Scaphium.

That’s Latin for “Make English the official language of the Super Bowl.” This is Hog Heaven's/Running Redskins' annual plea to bring some good, old fashioned American values to the American game by banning an even more old fashioned value from the Super Bowl.  

Roman numerals are the reason Latin is a dead language. Those old Romans needed four or more characters to express what we say with two or three. Just try to calculate the XI percent sales tax on a Super Bowl ticket (MMV Talents). No wonder the Barbarians sacked Rome.

They don’t even use Latin in Italy anymore.

I speak as a Catholic former altar boy of the old Latin Rite who flunked freshman Latin in high school. It was traumatic; an anchor on my grade point average that mocks me still. Hated it!

Super Bowl Ex-El-Vee? Can’t we just say Super Bowl 45? Or Super Bowl 2011? Or anything that makes sense?

Roman numerals haven’t made sense since the fall of the empire, much less since Super Bowl III. Does the NFL record scores in Roman Numerals? NO! NFL.com can’t fit “Saints XXXI, Colts XVII” in those little boxes in the box score.

And don’t even ask about stats. Did you know that in Super Bowl Ex-El-Eye-Vee Drew Brees was XXXII of XXXIX for CCLXXXVIII yards and II touchdowns?

Did EA Sports, who shapes so much of our modern view of football, introduce Madden XI? NO! They did Madden 11. You can’t sell Madden Ex-Eye to anybody. Surely, the NFL is as market savvy as EA Sports. Surely they can make their showcase game easier to understand than the CBA. If not, they should just cancel next season.

Oh. Wait....

This is America. We are Americans. We follow American football. Our numbering system is Arabic, but that's not the point. Can we express the American title of the American football championship in numbers Americans can read? Can we do it sometime before Super Bowl L?

In the Age of Madden, planto English persona lingua of Eximius Scaphium.

Deal with that, Daniel Snyder

Two things I think I know about Daniel Snyder:

1. He's unpopular among NFL owners


2. He want to host a Super Bowl (in addition to winning one)

So it must gall our man Dan that the NFL will host the 2011 Super Bowl in Dallas, in Jerry Jones new Cowboys [insert corporate name here] stadium; a new 100,000 seat stadium. The new cowboys stadium is under construction and will be complete for the 2009 season. It will supplant FedEx Field as the NFL's largest venue.

Now I get it. Now I understand the underground discussions with District officials to build a super large [I've heard capacity of up to 125,000] stadium. Owner egos such as they are, that's just something Dan the Man won't sit still for. Won't stand for it either.

There are still huge political and financial hurdles to overcome. One of which is that Mayor Adrian Fenty and most members of the DC Council opposed the baseball deal. Another is that Snyder might not get the NFL owner votes. Jerry Jones is no favorite among owners, either. He got the vote. Business and marketing is the thing that Mr. Snyder is good at. He could get this done, if he puts his mind to it.

[We won't go into what he's bad at, like getting the team in the Super Bowl. Oops, I mentioned it. My bad.]

The irony is that one obstacle to Washington hosting a Super Bowl is that the team owns FedEx Field. I suspect a future Super Bowl is one of those things the NFL dangles in front of governments to extract public funding for stadiums. The NFL is really good at extracting money and the Super Bowl is a unique property. In baseball and basketball, championship games are home & home series between the contending teams. There is only one Super Bowl. In sports, there's nothing like it except the Olympics.

For an online tour of every NFL stadium, including those under construction, see Stadiums of the NFL.

Image: www.stadiumsofthenfl.com

Donovan McNabb can't win the Super Bowl

I'll never understand Eagles fans. Here's a link to a post written by an Eagles' fan who's debating his father about Donovan McNabb. It seems Dad thinks NcNabb can't win the Super Bowl. You have to read the post to believe I'm not making this up. It's hilarious in its absurdity.

Go look and laugh.

Why does McNabb get bashed so much? In Philadelphia, yet? There are 32 teams in the NFL. At least 29 of them would give up body parts to have Donovan at QB. Poetic justice would be if McNabb were driven out of town and immediatly led his new team to the Super Bowl. Irony would be if his new team was the AFL champion and the team they beat was the Iggles.

Philly fans!

NFL Network: Hail '82 Redskins

The NFL Network will repeat the story of the 1982 Washington Redskins Super Bowl season at 8:00 PM EDT, Thursday, March 22. The NFL Network is only available on cable.

The '82 Redskins won Washington's first division title in ten years, then went on the win Super Bowl Ex-Vee-Eye-Eye after crushing the hated Cowboys to win the conference championship. It was the first of four Super Bowl appearances by the Redskins in the Joe Gibbs I era. Joe Theismann, Russ Grimm (one of the great football names ever) and Rick "Doc" Walker are interviewed in the broadcast.

The show is part of the NFL series America's Game, that tells the story of each Super Bowl winner and the events that led to the championship game. Viewers voted the '82 Redskins the 37th favorite Super Bowl team.

Oh yeah, Washington 27 - Miami 17. This game avenged the Redskins' loss to the undefeated Dolphins ten years earlier in Super Bowl VII.

Photo: John Riggins' fourth quarter TD run, Super Bowl XVII, Ronald C. Modra, www.sportsillustrated.cnn.com