In case you did not know, the Super Bowl is this Sunday.
While some football die-hards have been following week-to-week since pre-season, many more people will tune for what might be their only football viewing experience of the year at a get-together or party. In the right atmosphere they might actually pay attention to the game for a quarter or two and will need one team to root for to make it more fun.
Well this is for you as I will try to make the case for either team in the Super Bowl and try to give you a clip notes version of key things to know. This is Super Bowl LIII for Dummies.
New England Patriots
If you have even slightly been paying attention to who has played in the Super Bowl through the years, you might have heard of this team before. They are the team that lost last year’s Super Bowl, but since 2001 they have appeared in eight Super Bowls and have won five of them, which is an unprecedented run in league history.
The two constants this whole time have been the grumpy genius head coach Bill Belichick and golden boy quarterback Tom Brady. Belichick is the coach every coach at every level wants to be the like now, besides the greatest of all time Vince Lombardi.
His commitment to his team and making the team culture all about being selfless comes at the expense of charisma and fashion sense, Belichich usually wears a dirty looking hoodie, but you cannot argue with the results.
On the flip side, Brady is the quarterback this generation looks up to the most based on the results. Brady frequently comes through for his team in the biggest of games and the Super Bowl and has done it for so long now, it’s a wonder he is still as good as he is.
Age 41, while not old, is ancient in football years. While it seems like he has it all with his boyish good looks and a former super model for a wife wife, Brady did work for all of his success on the field. Until his breakthrough in his second year, he was destined to be a back-up quarterback for most of his career as no one believed in him. In that regard, he is the definition of hard work pays off that you can get.
The elephant in the room for the Patriots and why they evoke such strong reactions one way or the other is of course the controversies. The first was “spygate” where they were caught by the league video taping an opposing teams’ signals back in 2007.
The other controversy was more recent and was called “deflategate.” It was discovered after a game in 2015 the Patriots balls were slightly more deflated than was legally allowed, allowing for better grip.
While the team paid the price from the league both times, a fine and lost draft pick in the first case and a four game suspension to Brady in the second case, many fans have used both of these cases to discredit their entire run and label the organization cheaters.
Along with fatigue of constantly seeing them succeed for so long, a lot of fans root against the Patriots on these principles alone.
You may risk annoying people rooting for New England, but if that is what you are after then there is no better team to jump on the bandwagon for one game.

To read about why you should cheer for the Los Angeles Rams as well, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.