Chip Shots: Super Bowl, Olympics Blend Dread And Joy

The Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics are sharing time again.

For some of you, there will be a great deal of channel flipping to include some of the ancillary channels covering action not a part of the NBC flagship studio/TV station broadcast lineup.

For others, there will be another reason to do anything else but watch the Olympics, or the Super Bowl and all of IT’S lead-up/pregame broadcasting.

I could not care less about the 2026 Winter Olympiad. It shares something in common with not only Super Bowl pregame segments, but also NFL and college game day, pregame programming:

Human interest stories with the piano lead-in. The plinking of the keys is my cue to keep putting away laundry or not to take my gaze away from a spreadsheet on screen.

I can’t put a finger on when I flipped the switch on watching winter Olympiads, or when – on Super Bowl Sunday – I only had interest in watching the game.

I’ll focus on pre-game football contests this morning.

They are a colossal waste of time for me. The NFL Network broadcasts a recap of every Super Bowl on the Sunday prior to the big match-up. I need to sit and watch those in marathon fashion, but it is better to record the ones I want to know more about and watch them at my convenience.

I’m already so irritated on trying to figure out what channels to avoid and what rooms I can clean or straighten before kickoff… heck, I can’t stay on track for a complete thought.

The pregame show for the Fox Noon Football broadcast is the best pregame out there for college football, and the NFL Network pregame is the best for meaty stuff: analysis, reports from gameday sites, and a panel of experts who predict outcomes with a good knowledge base.

Aside from those, the ones – whom I won’t mention – with higher ratings, are worthless to me. It’s empty television viewing time.

I actually enter Super Bowl weekend a bit on the cranky side because I don’t want to fall into any televised trap until kickoff.

The timing of the Super Bowl is usually also the first Sunday of each new calendar year where I do not have to work 6-to-10 hours due to vocational demands.

I can’t remember when I viewed an NFL playoff game from start to finish without working on something else, and consequently, I have to use NFL+ to view the condensed replay.

Here I’ll be tomorrow with the following agenda:

7:30 a.m.: latest possible wake up time to enjoy a silent house, drink an espresso black with one Sweet & Low, then look at John Harrell’s website.

8:15 a.m.: there are (unavoidably) four reports from a midnight cut-off of production and inventory interface I must open, and forward to the lions I feed with some very brief commentary. As long as we are making stuff, those reports do not stop coming.

Tomorrow, however, will be the first time I am done - this calendar year - with work on Sunday by 9:15/9:30 a.m.

9:30 a.m.: Eat!

Everything after I eat will be time spent avoiding all the pregame Super Bowl programming, and the Olympics. I’m sure at least two TVs in the house will be blaring with each of these programming delights.

Here are things I SHALL do:

• Use NFL replay to watch about ½ dozen 40-ish minute segments of some of the best New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks regular and post season games on NFL+. Four hours will whisk by, and it will be about 2:00 p.m.
• Put away folded and hanged mounds of laundry.
• Be my wife’s go-fer while we clean and straighten rooms while I have Spotify playlists going (she’ll have to call my name loudly, at least twice before I hear her).
• Eat lunch.
• Scoop cat litter clumps from the litter boxes. We are down from five cats in 2020 to two here in 2026. Five again? Never.
• Organize bills and mail, file accordingly.

I hate Super Bowl parties so much, I am actually looking forward to the listed – but not all-inclusive agenda instead of attending a Super Bowl party.

The Super Bowl kickoff, commercials, and halftime show will actually be a rare time, however, I do not multitask while I watch television.

I dread the pregame timeline but enjoy just sitting down to enjoy something without the usual distractions and diversions.

Enjoy YOUR Super Bowl weekend.