A logo for Super Bowl LVII on Fox. A logo for Super Bowl LVII on Fox. (Fox Sports Press Pass.)
NFLOriginalsBy Andrew Bucholtz on

With the matchup for Feb. 12’s Super Bowl LVII in Glendale set thanks to the Eagles and Chiefs‘ conference championship game victories Sunday, we now enter the annual two-week leadup to the big game. The Super Bowl stands out in sports on many fronts, and one is the absolute hammering of the same storylines: the combination of the two weeks between the matchup being known and every outlet (including outlets not primarily focused on sports) trying to get in on discussing it means we often hear way, way too much on very obvious fronts. Some past examples there include “Did you know Jerome Bettis is from Detroit?”, “Did you know Jim and John Harbaugh are brothers?”, and “Did you know Tom Brady used to play for a different team?” Here are a few things from this year’s matchup already getting a lot of attention, which may wind up run into the ground the same way as those past stories.

1. “Did you know Travis and Jason Kelce are brothers?” Boy, many elements of the media love a good “brothers” storyline, as noted above with the Harbaugh one from 2013. And we’re fully set for another round of this with Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce and Eagles’ center Jason Kelce. Both of them have been media figures for a while in addition to NFL stars, and they host the New Heights video podcast (presented by Wave Sports + Entertainment) together. That show even already has a clip out about their sibling rivalry:

And the Kelces’ mom Donna, and her custom jersey honoring both teams, is already under discussion as well:

So, yeah, expect to hear a lot more of this brother content over the next two weeks.

2. “Did you know Andy Reid used to coach in Philadelphia?” There’s nothing like a “Coach faces old team” angle to beat into the ground, even if the coach in question last coached that team more than a decade ago. Yes, Reid had quite the run with the Eagles as head coach from 1999-2012, but it’s a pretty long ago part of his story at this point. Naturally, this is already getting lots of attention:

3. “Did you know these teams have celebrity fans?” This particular one happens at every Super Bowl, with it only changing depending on what team it is and who’s a fan of them. In this case, so far at least, we’ve seen a lot of talk about Bradley Cooper, Kevin Hart, and Rob McElhenney for the Eagles and Paul Rudd and Eric Stonestreet for the Chiefs.

4. “Did you know these cities have traditions and history?” This is another one that could be used most years in some way, but it feels like there are particular overkill possibilities this time around. With Philadelphia in particular, look for a million stories about the Rocky steps/statue and the greased poles:

Meanwhile with the Chiefs, there’s an already-confrontational mayor, and a million tweets about barbecue (some from the mayor):

And we can also expect plenty of coverage of Eagles incidents from the long past, including Santa and batteries.

5. “Did you know that Jalen Hurts was benched in his last title game start?” This is marginally more relevant to the actual game than most of what’s above, as it involves a current player and something about their play rather than their DNA or hometown. And this also probably isn’t being asked by the extremely-new-to-football parts of the media that are much of the focus of the above complaints, as this requires a fair bit of knowledge of Hurts’ career. It’s referencing the 2018 CFP national title game (for the 2017 season), where Hurts was famously pulled for Tua Tagovailoa.

Tagovailoa then started over Hurts for the Crimson Tide in the title game the next year. And Hurts went to Oklahoma after that and made the CFP, but not the title game. But there’s an extremely loose connection between the Super Bowl in 2023 and the national title game in 2018, to say nothing of the difference between being backed up by Tagovailoa and being backed up by…Gardner Minshew and Ian Book. Hurts is not getting pulled here unless he gets hurt, or unless he’s absolutely abhorrent, and both of those situations are a long way from what happened in 2018. But it wouldn’t be surprising to hear ab

Honorable mention: Did you know there was a previous Super Bowl played in this city? This is another one that comes up most years, and it’s funny as quite likely the least actually-connected to a current game. Yes, Glendale has hosted the Super Bowl before, most recently Super Bowl XLIX in 2015 (where the Patriots beat the Seahawks on the infamous Russell Wilson interception). That game has almost nothing to do with this one. But you can bet it’s going to be referenced a bunch.

For all those looking to survive two weeks of Super Bowl lead-up coverage, we salute you. Remember to hydrate with some non-Super Bowl topics as well. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

[Super Bowl LVII logo from Fox Sports Press Pass]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz