Having days and days and days of Super Bowl preview shows is analogous to 24-hour-per-day news coverage. With so much time to kill, there is simply not enough good information to fill the time, and the result is quite a bit of useless coverage and senseless reporting.

Much of the coverage is intended to be quirky or funny, such as the report on the history of the tradition of dumping Gatorade on the winning coach, reports of the statistics related to stock market success following a Steeler Super Bowl victory, and predictions about which song Bruce Springsteen will sing first.

Some of the coverage, though, is intended to be serious analysis but falls flat. Ron Jaworski, a former quarterback, is one of the quarterback experts on ESPN. I enjoy his analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of quarterbacks—it’s clear that he studies the current players and understands what talents are needed to be a successful quarterback; however, I don’t understand why he (and so many other experts) feel as if all quarterbacks need to do the same things in the same way at all times.

Jaworski, on Sunday, was critical of how long Ben Roethlisberger holds on to the football—as every other “expert” has been. Ben Roethlisberger has been in the league for five years and has won the Super Bowl twice. Jaworski was in the league for 15  years and never won the Super Bowl. Perhaps Jaworski didn’t hang on to the football long enough; Roethlisberger seems to be doing pretty well playing the way he plays. Perhaps Jaworski should be taking advice from Roethlisberger.

I’m not attempting to single out Jaworski in my criticism; my point is bigger. Perhaps we should consider that there is more than one way to be successful———-and we shouldn’t spend so much time trying to fit people into predetermined molds.

–Paul