A superstar Super Bowl
There is great news for Kansas City Chiefs fans! Taylor Swift has won the Super Bowl!
Well, OK, she may have had a little help from her boyfriend, Travis Kelse. Also, from that guy named Mahomes and maybe Coach Reid and all of those other guys who were running around on the Las Vegas gridiron that day.
But Taylor’s fans pretty much agree that all of that pales in comparison with the awesome power that was brought to bear by Her Swiftness.
My wife and I normally don’t care much about professional sporting events. But our son and his wife and our toddler grandson live in Kanas City, so we are compelled by federal law to be Chiefs fans.
We watched the Super Bowl with our friends and neighbors, Jen and Tim. Jen and Tim are an extremely nice couple who lived in Colorado for many years and are thus Broncos fans. You could say that we had a mixed crowd at our house.
The Super Bowl is all about super eating, so my wife and I pulled out all the stops. I made my famous (or is it infamous?) Gut Busting Chili. I began by browning a pound of our farm-fresh Jersey hamburger and supered things up by tossing in some bacon and extra spices. It’s crucial that the chili live up to its name.
Watching football has come to be associated with eating wings, especially those that have been harvested from a buffalo.
But why mess with those weenie little one-bite chunks of chicken when bigger and better things are available?
I amped up our wings offering by smoking a batch of chicken drumsticks. I left the saucing — there were choices that ranged from “milder than ketchup” to “nuclear” — up to the individual eater.
We Midwesterners are nothing if not efficient. We were already well past the point of “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!” by the time The Star-Spangled Banner was over. In keeping with tradition, we spent the rest of the game noshing leisurely on goodies and sipping adult beverages.
The game started out slow. There was a lot of dashing hither and yon but very little scoring. Kelse caught only one pass in the first half. I took this to mean that Taylor was holding her powers in check for a time when they would really be needed.
The Chiefs trailed the 49ers 3-10 at halftime. My wife opined that the game was as good as over. But she forgot that the Chiefs — I mean, Taylor — are at their best when their backs are against the wall.
The second half was a lot more exciting than the first. There was so much action that I forgot about the glass of beer that I had poured for myself. The beer became warm, but warm beer is still better than no beer.
The Chiefs fought back and took the lead. Then the Niners grabbed the lead. Then the game was tied. Then the Niners were ahead again. There was so much adrenalin flowing in Allegiant Stadium that its toilets were stretched to their limit.
The Chiefs were down by three points with only 16 seconds left on the clock. Taylor used her superstar mind waves to enable her boyfriend to catch a pass and run the ball down into easy field goal range. Harrison Butker, the Chiefs’ kicker, kicked butt that day. His chip shot split the uprights.
The game was tied at the end of regulation play. Overtime! All across the nation, fingernails were being chewed to the quick.
The Niners won the coin toss and elected to receive. This made sense to me, but it was later revealed that this was actually a fatal strategic error. There can be no doubt that Taylor had something to do with this.
After battling their way down the gridiron, the 49ers scored a field goal. Game over! That is, unless the Chiefs could retie the game with a field goal or win with a touchdown. My fingernails were completely chewed, so I had to borrow my wife’s.
Mahomes drove his team methodically down the field. Thanks to Taylor’s intense concentration from high up in the skybox, Mahomes was able to float a short pass to Mecole Hardman in the endzone. Touchdown!
Confetti flew! Fans went wild! The cheers were deafening! And that was just at our house. It was probably much louder in the stadium.
Taylor and Travis were soon hugging and kissing on the sidelines, an epic hero enjoying hard-won rewards.
But it’s entirely possible that Travis and his teammates may have also had something to do with the win.
— Jerry’s book, Dear County Agent Guy, is available at http://Workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.