Dear Chicago Bears, Kyle here. First of all, I think some congratulations are in order for making it through 16 bone-crunching regular season games and two rounds of leave-your-blood-on-the-field playoffs. After some inspired drives and a few downright stubborn defensive stands, you've punched your ticket to South Florida for what will truly be the event of a lifetime. In just under two weeks, every one of your play calls, every misstep, every coverage scheme and every bead of sweat will be analyzed by exactly 141.1 bazillion people from Minneapolis to Malaysia. You know it's just a game, right? Hello?
Anyway, now that you've made it this far, I thought I'd take a moment to let you know what to expect between now and Super Sunday.
This is going to be a crash course, because I know you are pretty new to the big game -- unlike those Patriots who (until this year) seem to pencil in the Super Bowl the way other people pencil in dentist appointments.
That said, for teams that aren't so relaxed in the national spotlight, the pre-Super Bowl hype can be a little blinding (think last year's Seattle Seahawks). It all starts now, after the conference championships, when you'll be asked to do something you haven't done all season: wait. There are two weeks until Super Bowl XLI -- that's more down time than any NFL team has had since mid-October. The difference? Back in October, bye weeks meant an extra set of uninterrupted practices, meetings and film sessions. In the days leading up to Super Sunday, you'll be about as focused as a 5-year-old at a three-ring circus (if the circus was in outer space and each ring was made of candy).
It all starts next Monday, when you'll be jetting to Miami after a relatively sane week of practice back home. As soon as you step off the plane, you'll be swarmed by more journalists and photographers than you ever thought existed. After checking into your hotel, you'll probably head over to Dolphins Stadium for a walkthrough on its perfectly-manicured turf. Come game day, this same field will serve as a fireworks launching pad, dance floor and a concert stage for Prince himself, so make sure to slip the grounds crew a Hamilton or two to keep it nice through the second half.
Tuesday marks the beginning of the real feeding frenzy. According to Ben Roethlisberger, last year's Super Bowl-winning quarterback who kept a running blog of all the 2006 pre-game craziness, Tuesday is technically a day off for players, but in Miami that just means you won't actually touch a football. Instead, your buses will pull out of the hotel parking lot before 8 a.m. for "Media Day" (basically an opportunity for those pesky sports reporters to swarm you like fruit flies at a picnic). A few of you will have your own booths, where media representatives will hoist their boom mikes and pepper you with questions about your coach, the weather, your mother and how mad you are that you'll be missing Prince at halftime. Try to remember that these people's jobs depend on you being slightly more interesting than the booths you're sitting in.
Wednesday and Thursday will be "practice" days (if you can actually get some plays in before sitting courtside at the Miami Heat game). As you make your way back to the team hotel, dodging crowds of well-wishers, delirious autograph-seekers and security guards, just remember that Sunday will be all about 22 players, 11 on offense and 11 on defense, and all the hoopla will be forgotten. You've just got to focus on making it that far.
Come Friday and Saturday, the frenzy surrounding the Super Bowl will reach a fever pitch. Chances are your last day of real practice will be Friday, and then it's just a little R&R before the main event. Saturday night, your team will be shuttled to a new (and ultra-secret) hotel in an effort to salvage any shred of privacy you might have left before going on stage the next day.
At this point, you will each have handled dozens of interviews, promotional appearances and personal requests from your adoring public and the scoop-hungry media. Now that your brains are mush, your eyeballs are flashbulb-fried and your hands are practically falling off from signing your names so many times, you'll be expected to play the best football of your life on an unfamiliar field against one of the hottest teams around. So take a deep breath and smile, the countdown starts now.
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