We must be honest and admit that so far, this Superb Owl has gotten off to a a bit of a slow start. After all, when the biggest story to come out of the week comes not in San Francisco but Cleveland, where Johnny Manziel has been told he should pursue his doctorate in drinking out of a bucket on his own time, you are failing in the one area this event tries to excel.
Embarrassing entertainment for us all. You know, the kind that makes Rich Eisen open his daily show on NFL Network with, "Oh, you're not gonna believe this one ... oh, wait. Of course you are."
So slow start, yes, but I sense good news on the horizon. I feel a quiet surge of weird coming on, and by the end of the week enough jaw-slackening stupidity will have piled up that we can truly hold our heads high as we are being led en masse into the black maria and say we did the week right.
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SIGN UP HERE First, the Denver Broncos team bus was involved in an accident on its way back from its first practice of the week Monday. Nobody was hurt, but there was a sufficient enough jolt to let everyone know that we in this area take automobile safety as a suggestion rather than a directive.
Amusement Meter Score: 2, given that this will be remembered as a week in which hour-long bus rides are considered “part of the charm of Bay Area living” by local boosters who really could use a solid punch in the throat.
Tuesday, though, it started to get a little hinkier, and a little kinkier too. Broncos practice squadder Ryan Murphy was sent home after his brother got into a bit of a thing with a prostitute. Murphy was questioned but released, then was sent home for being a potential distraction -- though as a practice squad player, it is hard to know what kind of actual distraction he could provide unless he set the hotel on fire and ran into the street naked shrieking, “I am Spartacus!”
Amusement Meter Score: 4, only because it happened too early in the week to a non-starter.
San Francisco 49ers
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[RELATED: Broncos player questioned in San Jose prostitution sting]
At this point, we should explain that to get a 10, you need to do what Atlanta Falcons defensive back Eugene Robinson did in 1999, soliciting sex from an undercover officer in Miami the night before the Falcons lost to ... wait for it ... John Elway and Denver. Robinson is now a radio and broadcast analyst for the Carolina Panthers and spoke to the players this week about the dangers that lurk everywhere, and the night he went off the grid only to discover that the grid went off on him.
And some people include Oakland’s Barret Robbins and his Mexico walkabout 13 years ago as a distraction, and technically it was, but given his substance abuse and manic-depressive issues that he grappled with at the time and still works to control even now, it seems gratuitous and even unfair to put him in this group. Besides, if your center can cause you to lose a game by four touchdowns, you may have overinflated your reliance on the wrong player.
So we’re not looking for life-destroying stuff here, even on a stage where life and death are painted as mere collateral damage in something far more important -- winning the Superb Owl.
[RELATED: Super Bowl 50 Central]
But these grand events do hinge in the memory based on what memories they can provide that aren’t supplied by the sanitation crews of NFL Films. (Anyone remember when the America's Cup was here? No? I rest my case.)
Truthfully, we’d be good with Elway and Carolina coach Ron Rivera getting into a drunken brawl at Bourbon & Branch over the real result of the 1982 Big Game: “Those were illegal laterals;” “Your band came out on the field;” “The officials choked;” “Your guys couldn’t tackle;” “My college career was ruined;” “You missed out on a Bluebonnet Bowl. Stop being an infant;” “You wanna go?” “Here at the bar or in the street like men?”
We’d happily amuse ourselves with the vision Manziel turning up (sponsored or not, it doesn't really matter) on a field trip to City Hall wearing camo pants, a meshback fishing hat and lugging a Thermos full of frat house party punch. Or Roger Goodell’s limo breaking down in the middle of the Tenderloin. Or Ed Hochuli punching out an Uber -- I mean a car, not a driver. Or Peyton Manning breaking down and admitting that his true and enduring legacy is as a guy who sells pizza. Or a beacon shining above San Mateo with a single legend: “Tom Brady Should Be Here Instead. Mom And Dad.”
But these are all fantasies based on the notion that this week should be something special, and there is no compelling reason why it should be. Many Superb Owl weeks are pretty boilerplate things, especially as the NFL’s ability to control both the geography and the in-town narratives have grown and blurred into one gray marketing mass. Lady Gaga singing the national anthem now has the same significance as the game itself, and really other than the Janet Jackson Nanosecond Of Breast or the MIA Finger Of Fun, who remembers any of the entertainment?
[REWIND: Ray Ratto's coverage of Canada's Grey Cup]
But we do live in hope that the early signs are a harbinger of the strangeness we hope will come. As the sainted journalist Scoop Nisker always said, “If you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own.” Clearly, this is how it’s going to have to play out if the Bosnia-Herzegovina Superb Owl is to have any lasting value or meaning in this disposable age of ours.
In other words, ladies and jellyspoons from across the globe, either go weird or don’t go at all. We have expectations of you just as you do of us. That’s why we went to the trouble of paying all those cops you see.