Several reasons not to watch the Super Bowl

If the Super Bowl is your thing, we get it.

Sports are your go-to escape, your release, your passion, and the Super Bowl is the pinnacle of sports entertainment.

Not only does the Big Game pit the best two teams of the professional football world, it brings out the best in advertisements, and the half-time show is always either insanely eye-popping theatrics or a big head-scratcher. There are many reasons to watch.

But ladies and gentlemen, there are good reasons not to get sucked into the spectacle.

Patriots fatigue

Let's start with Tom Brady. And Bill Belichick. And those Patriots.

Do you really need to watch the cleft-chinned, dashingly-handsome quarterback with the supermodel wife win yet another Super Bowl? Unless you're a die-hard Patriots fan, you're setting yourself up for another deflating result (see what we did there?). And Belichick. He will probably go down as the best NFL coach of all-time, but is there a more surly person on the planet? Lighten up, dude. You coach football. Belichick puts out less information about his football team than Congress puts out classified documents. The Patriots are not without scandal, however, with at least two major cheating scandals notched in their legacy, which is even more than is known about Missouri's current governor. They also drafted a guy with a sketchy background, made him into a superstar and later saw him go to prison for one homicide, and he was suspected of others.

Wait, that guy?

On the other side of the ball, there's the Eagles. We're not quite sure how this team got to the Big Game, but whatever. It's a team seriously lacking exciting star power. There's quarterback Nick Foles. He was so bad for the Rams, they couldn't even find a team to trade him to.

Timberlake

We don't deny Justin Timberlake's talent, but he's already performed at two Super Bowls already, including his infamous "wardrobe malfunction" incident. Now that we think of it, where's the #metoo outrage here? The exposure of Janet Jackson's breast was "unintentional" but can you imagine if someone did this at the office? Yikes. Regardless, with Timberlake, we've been here, done that. The NFL doesn't seem to be 'N Sync.' It should've gone in a New Direction. Plus Timberlake and Brady are good friends.

Say, can you see?

President Trump and Collin Kaepernick almost brought the NFL to its knees this year. You already know the drama, so we won't replay the scenario, but if you're politically minded, there are reasons for both sides to be disappointed in how the NFL responded to the protests. We do find it disappointing that the NFL did not accept a print advertisement for the program that encouraged fans to stand for the National Anthem. It appears the issue came down to language in the ad that included the hashtag #PleaseStand. We don't know all the particulars and respect the NFL's right to reject advertisements, but this was not good for the league already black and blue when it comes to PR. The NFL always douses its pregame festivities in red, white and blue ... but the military has paid millions and millions to sports teams to promote this patriotism. And by the way, did you know that the NFL was considered a tax-exempt entity for 73 years, meaning it didn't pay taxes? Meanwhile, cities all across the country have put public dollars into stadiums to attract teams to their markets. So let that sink in: Our military has paid millions of our tax dollars to the NFL. Our cities and states have paid millions to the NFL for stadiums. But from 1942 to 2015 the NFL was a "nonprofit" and tax-exempt entity. Commissioner Roger Goodell's salary is north of $34 million a year. The Dallas Cowboys franchise is worth $4 billion.

CTE

As you decide whether to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, it's worth pausing to realize what football does to men. A decade or more from today, many of these gridiron gladiators will struggle with brain injury. Some will suffer memory loss. Others will commit suicide. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy was found in 99 percent of NFL players' brains that were studied posthumously. The NFL desperately wants this story to go away, as the enterprise tries to make rule changes to "protect" players, though the big helmet-to-helmet hits the NFL has worked to prevent aren't what causes the CTE, scientists say. It's the repetitive, typical play-after-play collisions that cause the damage over time. To borrow a famous movie quote, "Are you not entertained?"

Domestic abuse

The NFL's record regarding its players and women is abysmal. Is there anything worse than that?

So if you're not a fan of football, there's really no reason to get sucked into the game. But if you find yourself at a party, eat as much as you want. Enjoy the ads. That's what the Super Bowl is really about.