The more I thought about the game last night, the more I realized something – I don’t really like the Super Bowl very much. Don’t get me wrong – and day of football is usually better than a day without football. It’s just that there are a whole lot of other football days that I would rather watch than that one. There are a bunch of reasons why, but here are seven:

Too much hype – It’s just a game, and a lot of factors contribute to make it more likely to be less of a game than most. Despite that, the game gets a ridiculous amount of attention, scrutiny, and talk. Every single angle of the game is dissected and discussed to death. Much of it is a ridiculous waste of time. All of it contributes to the game being built up into something that it can’t possibly live up to.

Just one game – As strange as it seems, I think I actually like football more before the playoffs start. The best part of the heart of the football season is the number of games. There are dozens every Saturday to choose from, and then as many as 15 more on Sunday. It’s perfect. No matter what kind of games you like to play, you are almost certain to find some that you like. You can find as much action as you want, and the kind of action that makes you happy. On Super Bowl Sunday you only have one game, and it is rarely a truly attractive betting opportunity.

Too much public involvement – I’m not saying that the public shouldn’t be allowed to watch football. I’m just saying that I find it annoying how the books have to change their approach for the Super Bowl. Most games, the books set their lines to compensate for public money. In the Super Bowl they are forced to compensate instead for the huge influx of naive public money. That is far less predictable, and it makes the lines harder to understand and trust.

Too long between games – Two weeks of downtime just leads to too many rumors, too much speculation, and way too much dead space. We don’t gain anything from the break, so all it is is annoying.

Takes way too long – The commercials are fun, but between them and all the ceremonies and the halftime show and all the game is just way too long. I’ll take a two and a half hour regular season game anytime.

Everyone’s an expert – When Super Bowl comes around we are inundated by the opinions of every celebrity in the world. Everyone has an opinion, and we can’t escape any of them. Tiresome.

It’s the end of the season – As I talked about last night, at the end of it all, you are left with the end of the season and a long stretch of football-less time. Training camps don’t start for six months, and we don’t get a meaningful game until college ball starts seven months from now. There are things like signing day, the combine and the draft to ease the pain a bit, but it is a long dry spell.