Big top time

Look, the Blob tried. It tried to be like the good people of New Orleans, who are still in a snit over that missed call and have decided (at least in some locales) to ignore That One Game the Los Angeles Rams and New Bleeping England Bleeping Patriots are playing on Sunday.

Seriously. A few bars in NOLA are actually refusing to air the game at all, instead opting to show the 2010 Super Bowl that was, of course, won by the Saints.

Well, the Blob would like to do that, too. Instead of weighing in on the Super Bowl, it would prefer handicapping the Puppy Bowl. Or rambling on about what a television pinnacle "Friday Night Lights" was. Or popping in "North Dallas Forty" just for the scene where Nick Nolte pees in the whirlpool while drinking a morning beer.

Now that says football to me, by God.

But ... no. The Blob has an obligation, and that obligation is to talk about That One Game. Especially because last night was the event that's pretty much become emblematic of the entire Super Bowl hypefest -- what we used to call Media Day, and what they now call Opening Night.

This is when they bring select players from both teams onto the field, stick them in little booths and let the media interrogate them. Or should I say "the media."

That's because it's not a night for people who actually work the beat. It's for circus clowns like the guy from Telemundo who went around interviewing players via sock puppet one year. Or the guy from Nickelodeon dressed as a superhero; I can't recall his name, nor do I want to. Or the guy who, on Media Day in 2007, asked Bears tight end Desmond Clark what kind of football player Chewbacca would be.

Or Downtown Julie Brown. Or Gilbert Gottfried, aka the Most Annoying Person On The Planet.

Now, if you're asking at this point how any of these people got credentials ... well, pretty much anyone apparently can get a credential to the Super Bowl if he or she has a schtick. You don't have to be an actual media person. In fact I suspect the NFL delights in handing out credentials to the circus clowns, because above all else the Super Bowl is a circus.

And so last night we got the usual goofiness, Serious Questions Being Asked By Serious People. Someone asked Julian Edelman about his Grizzly Adams beard. Someone asked Gronk if he knew where he was. Someone gave an embroidered pillow to Tom Brady, and a poncho with Bill Belichick's face on it to Bill Belichick.

This prompted perhaps the only actual news of the night: Belichick actually smiled and cracked a joke.

This was much more newsworthy than what happened in 2012, when the New Bleeping England Bleeping Patriots played the Giants in Indy. On Media Day, some radio goober waved a red plastic tricorn hat at Belichick and asked if he'd put it on for a photo op.

"No, I'm not gonna do that," Belichick growled.

Ah. Reality at last.