America's Team

And no, sorry, Jerry Jones. It's not the Cowboys.

It's the Jacksonville Jaguars, and who cares if they wear those weird helmets that look half-charred, as if the boys sat them too close to the bonfire at the big pregame rally. That doesn't matter. Neither does the fact that the Jags' quarterback is Blake Bortles, who could not be more respected if his name were Donald J. Trump, First Buffoon of the Republic of I Got Mine, formerly known as the United States of America.

In other words, every sports person in America thinks Bortles' playbook is written in crayon, and contains sets with names like Run, Spot, Run and See Dick Throw A Swing Pass To Jane. For this reason alone the Blob would like to see Bortles get the Jags to the Super Bowl. The halftime show could feature the heads of every yapping poodle on sports-babble radio exploding at once.

Of course, that isn't really why the Jags are America's Team. It's because of who they're playing.

Which would be the New England Patriots, of whom every true American is heartily sick. Out here in Real America, we wish the Patriots would just go away and never come back. We are sick of them. We are sick of  their boring Transcript-Speak. We are sick of their equally boring head games, the latest of which is entitled Talk To The Hand.

That would be Tom Brady's throwing hand, which apparently sustained some sort of minor owie in practice this week. The Pats are milking this for all it's worth, sending Brady to yesterday's presser wearing gloves and giving the sort of non-answers we've come to expect from the Bill Belichick Kremlin. The sports media of course swallowed this whole, hyperventilating all over itself about oh, my God, what if Brady can't go and can the Pats still win with Brian Hoyer.

Out here in Real America, this provoked gales of laughter, because out here we know standard Patriots gamesmanship when we see it. The whole thing is so obviously the Pats trying to get an inexperienced playoff team (the Jags) off-balance it hardly bears mentioning. Brady, despite his little stage play, apparently threw the ball as well as ever yesterday. So ... yeah.

And also ...

Please, Jacksonville. Beat these clowns.

Do it for football. Do it for all the long-suffering sportswriters who'd like to get a usable quote out of Super Bowl week. Do it for America.

Yeah. Do it for America.