We’re deep into the insufferableness of no football before really important football, and I’m already feeling anxious. Anxious enough to buy some Mariners opening day tickets. Anxious enough to comb through over a hundred dip recipes to pull out nine to make for Sunday. Anxious enough to watch the end of last Sunday’s game 35 more times. Anxious enough to decide that God is sending a message about his intentions through the weather of Seattle and Boston. Anxious enough to smoke that Marshawn Lynch pot to soothe my nerves. It’s mostly helping. (I got it from Green Umbrella.)

What isn’t helping my anxiety though? Super Bowl bullshit week! Christ almighty is it chock full o’ bullshit! To be clear, there are only three possible interesting pieces of Super Bowl news that could come out this week:

• Confirmation of Earl Thomas’ injury status.
• Confirmation of Richard Sherman’s injury status.
• Confirmation of Tom Brady’s injury status. (What? HE COULD TOTALLY GET INJURED!)

But the hype machine must continue! So what do we get instead of anything good? This shit:

More Deflategate shenanigans!

Patriots head coach and infamous super villain Bill Belichick gave a press conference (wearing a suit!) in which he said nothing using more words than it usually takes for him to say nothing. Also the NFL has decided that a “person of interest” (read: a fucking ballboy) has come to light. Yeah. A ballboy for an NFL team, of his own accord in the AFC Championship game, deflated 11 of the team's 12 official balls.

Yeah.

Hey, New England. WHY NOT JUST ADMIT YOU DID THIS AND LOSE A DRAFT PICK? The ball jokes were fun for a while, but I can’t anymore. I just can’t with this shit.

Prop bets!

Want to bet on Katy Perry’s hair color for the halftime show? Wanna bet on Marshawn Lynch grabbing his crotch? Wanna get less than even-money on a coin flip? Well, the Super Bowl is an opportunity to bet on anything, and I guess there are worse ways to light money on fire.

Vegas casinos will only let you bet on things that happen on the field. But the internet? The internet will let you bet on anything.

Anything.

Also, this is a good place to note the money in Vegas is coming in heavy on the Patriots. America thinks the Patriots will win. Last year they thought the Broncos were going to win. Jermaine Kearse, any thoughts?

Cornerbacks saying dumb things!

Former Seahawk and current Patriot Brandon Browner said he would tell teammates to go try to aggravate Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas’ injuries. Which is kinda shitty, because they’re all Legion of Boom guys, but also they all play football, so I’m gonna let this slide. But that’s it, Browner! One more step out of line like that and The Stranger will spread santorum on you.

I wonder what Browner could mean? Hmmm…

Meanwhile, Seahawks cornerback Jeremy Lane said Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski is "not that good." This set off a firestorm, so I’m going to step in and defend Lane. Is Gronkowski the best tight end in football? Yes. Is he the best receiving threat in football? No. Not even close. And if Gronkowski is your best receiving weapon, that means your receiving weapons are not so good.

Also, who are the other great tight ends in the NFL? Greg Olsen? Didn’t do much against the Seahawks. Jimmy Graham? Also didn’t do much against the Seahawks. Vernon Davis? Still has post-traumatic stress dreams about Kam Chancellor.

We're going to be okay.

The Fucking Pro Bowl!

The Pro Bowl happened, and hopefully you didn’t watch it. That said, by not watching it you missed one great thing. A great thing I will show you now (thanks to Seahawks video compiling hero @Jose8BS):

That’s Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman freaking out over Golden Tate making a great catch and run in a meaningless football game. Well, mostly Sherman freaking out. Earl Thomas doesn’t freak out when he gets excited. He just becomes infinitely dense for an infinitesimal amount of time and then emerges more pure. It’s weird.

An ad!

An ad?

Yes. The greatest ad of all time:

There’s a lot of gold in this Skittles ad which one hopes will cover the cost of all of Marhawn Lynch’s fines for the season, but my favorite moment is the Chyron that says: “Marshawn Lynch, Earthling For Life.” To paraphrase the old motto of one of our great local baseball blogs: Marshawn Lynch is ours and no other planet can have him.

Okay, that's enough bullshit for today. Actual Super Bowl soon. Get excited. Stay excited.