004: From Tush Push to Taylor Swift - Your Super Bowl Primer

We're breaking down the biggest Super Bowl headlines — Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs’ shot at history, famous WAGs, and the Taylor Swift effect. Plus, we’re diving into the commercials everyone will be talking about and the infamous Tush Push. And just to keep things interesting, we made some bets… with a bad haircut on the line. Get ready for all the Super Bowl hype you need, plus hot takes, laughs, and a game plan to make you sound like an expert at your watch party! 

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Chapters

• 11:39 Playoff Structure and Team Dynamics
• 20:00 Taylor Swift's Impact on Football Viewership
• 22:16 Refereeing Controversies and Conspiracies
• 22:52 The Tush Push
• 23:59 Eagles' Key Players and Defensive Strength
• 31:32 The Influence of WAGS in Sports
• 41:58 Commercial Highlights for Super Bowl 59
• 43:21 Betting on the Big Game
• 46:28 Spotlight on Women in Sports Marketing

Transcript

What is your stance on all the social media noise around conspiracy? Specifically, the chiefs and I think three Pete or not. Taylor is connected to another Super Bowl. There's more viewers. There's more money. This is the thing. My stance on that is- I don't buy it by the way. I'm a conspiracy Yeah. My stance is I will never, never, ever, ever, ever call out an official because I was one. 

Have you ever wondered why people get so hyped about their favorite sports teams? Well, it turns out it's not just about the game. It's about the community. My name is Taryn. And I'm Amber. Welcome to Almost Fans, the sports podcast that's fun, a little bit educational, and will give you plenty to say when you're trying to keep up with those diehard sports fans in your life. 

Welcome everyone. This week we're hyping you up for the Super Bowl because it's going to be a game for the record books. But before we get into all the juicy gossip and headlines and fun facts, of course, we're going to kick things off with our starting five. So this week's topic is our top five favorite childhood sports heroes. So Taryn, go first with your number five. 

I love this topic. I'm so excited. So I'm going to start with my number five, which is Mia Hamm, FIFA Women's World Cup champ, two time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA World Player of the Year two times, and just an absolute trailblazer for women in soccer. And her jersey was retired by her college, which was 

UNC. Bingo. Big UNC gal over here. All right, your turn. And I'm going to hit you right away. And let's have you do your number four because Mia Hamm was also my number five. my gosh, we're starting to get on the same page since episode one. Okay, my number four is kind of cheating. I'll just say that it's a little bit cheating. So my number four is the best five alive, which is 

The Detroit Pistons, the five players were Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Taishan Prince, Rashid Wallace, and Ben Wallace. I can really just remember vividly growing up as a kid and they were so awesome, so much fun. They won the 2004 NBA championship against the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers, considered one of the best upsets in NBA history. 

So cool. And I also wrote down a fun fact that the five of them still have a group chat to this day. I love that. Like besties from college. I love that. My number four is Carrie Strug. So she was an Olympic gymnast. And in 1996, the women's gymnastics team won an all around gold. And it's in large part thanks to that epic 

iconic vault where she had a busted ankle and sprained ankle, but she gutted it out. then later on, her coach carrying her up to the podium and whatnot. But I loved Olympic gymnast when I was a kid. she's my number four. I don't love that story. It kind of makes me a little bit sad because of, think Simone Biles sort of drew some light on that in her documentary. 

about just the forcing to kind of push through the pain. So I feel a little bit sad about that one, but still great. is true. Okay. My number three, it's Michael Jordan. mean, just what can you say about him? Six time NBA championship with the Chicago Bulls. He's considered heavily one of the goats of basketball. So had to have Michael Jordan as number three. Yeah. Amen. 

next I have Nancy Kerrigan. I'm sticking with the theme of Olympic athletes here. So Nancy Kerrigan, an amazing figure skater in the Olympics. Of course, she is almost most well known for being the victim of a hit man hired by her rival, Tonya Harding. This was in the 1994 Olympics, but I love figure skating in the Olympics and she was a joy to watch. And I'm so glad that she survived that and, is

doing thriving, it seems like. Did you ever see that I, Tanya movie? No, was it good? Yeah. Interesting. Super interesting. Sure. Sorry. Yeah. Mm hmm. Did an interesting life like, you know, group on the other side of the tracks. Yeah. Hmm. I will watch that. Yeah, definitely. Okay. My number two, I can still see it in my head. She was the first woman to ever dunk a basketball. It is Lisa Leslie. 

three time WNBA MVP. She's won two WNBA championships. She's a four time Olympic gold medalist and she played for the LA sparks. So awesome. That name makes me happy. Okay. My number two is none other than Mr. Shaquille O'Neal. So an all around good dude who has miraculously impressively stayed out of the media for bad stuff. 

I mean, like always in the media for good stuff. Always giving things away. He's fun. He's funny. I had a teddy bear named Shack Bear when I was a kid. I had an Orlando Magic uniform and a sweatband and Shack Bear came everywhere with me. A couple of fun facts about Shack. Did you know that he has a doctoral degree? He might seem like all fun and jokes and mostly he is, I think, but he also is a smart dude. 

And did you know throughout his entire career in the NBA, he only made one three point shot every time. Right? And maybe just like one free throw. Yeah, something like that. you know, because like now the NBA is like big dudes who can shoot threes. Everybody's shooting threes. Everybody's times. It's a different moment. But I thought that was a really fun fact. That is super funny. And I'm going to keep it up with the LA sports realm. 

My number one most favorite and honestly, truly to this day, probably favorite athlete of all time is Kobe Bryant, number one. And we just had his five year anniversary of him and his daughter's death, which was so sad. I literally remember where I was when I heard the news about him passing away, him and his daughter. And I'm telling you right now, I have goosebumps actually thinking about it. That's the first celebrity death that literally 

made me cry. Like I actually remember having a breakdown moment being like, Kobe Bryant did not die. I cannot fathom this, but he's just amazing. Certainly early on in his career, he had some questionable things that came up about him personally. But I think once he got married and had daughters, he became absolutely one of the most passionate advocates for women and girls in sports, especially after he retired from the NBA, his daughter, Gianna. 

who also passed away with him. Their love for basketball was just so big and he was a big supporter of the WNBA and super big advocate for their recognition and growth. So I think he's smiling in heaven down on Caitlin Clark and all that's happening in the WNBA. So that's my number one. Amen to that. I'm going to pull it back a little bit from all of that authenticity because my number one childhood sports hero is Brett Favre. 

Almost Fans (08:08.718) 

And I want to say childhood, there's an asterisk because my childhood ended right around 2000. So from 1992 until 2000. Okay. So here in Packers land, we don't know a lot of, um, quarterbacks. I've been in Patriots land. You don't really either. Like you keep a quarterback for a long time. And so Brett Farr was like, you know, he was 

like the only quarterback I really knew until Aaron Rodgers and now Jordan Love. So with the Packers, he had 321 consecutive starts from 1992 to 2010, which is when he quote unquote, not actually quote unquote, retired from the Packers and then went on and did. He retired and then he unretired and then he retired and then he unretired. And you know, the drama began and then there's lots of other chapters. But, during my childhood, 

He was my sports hero because my childhood existed before his alleged inappropriate bathroom pictures and permanently borrowing money from welfare recipients. All of that happened after childhood. So, so I have to say about that. I'm gonna definitely talk about this with you afterwards, but we'll let it slide. There's an asterisk next to this number one starting five. Okay. Kobe Bryant made some questionable life decisions early on as well. I think you learned from them. 

I don't think Brett Favre learned from his mistakes. think he got worse as he got older. Yeah. I mean, there's still time. There's still time. 

Almost Fans (09:43.054) 

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Almost Fans (10:14.22) 

All right, now we're gonna transition and we hope you're ready for the ultimate Super Bowl breakdown as we dive into everything from the players and the coaches to the halftime show, game day food you can't miss. If you're going to the actual Super Bowl, we're gonna tackle the big stories on and off the field, probably mostly the ones off the field, if we're being honest here. And plus a few surprises that you might not have seen coming, so get ready. 

First, we're going to set the stage. This is Super Bowl LIX or Super Bowl 59. Why do we even use the numerals? I don't understand. know. Just to make it fancy. Yeah. It just looks nice and metal, maybe. It's Super Bowl 59. February 9th at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. This Superdome is home to, indeed, the one and only New Orleans Saints who will be watching the game. 

Not from the Super Bowl, well, maybe, but probably mostly from their TVs at home. This is the 11th time that New Orleans has hosted a Super Bowl. Taryn and I have both picked teams and we're going to reveal those along with some bets later in the episode. But for now, Taryn, will you get things started with some details about how we got here? How did we wind up with these two teams? And then for the actual big game, who are the players to watch and why? 

Yeah, absolutely. So if you've been following along episode one, we did a little NFL one-on-one and I went really high level playoffs. So today I want to dive in just a little bit deeper for those of you who maybe watched and were confused or heard some terms that you weren't sure about or just didn't understand what you were hearing. So we're going to talk a little bit about, remember when I mentioned your brother? 

and how you really want to beat your brother, which technically is your divisional rivals. So people that are within your division. Remember when I said that? Yeah. yeah. It's even more important than what I went into. So what is really important is that the winner of each division, so four teams from each side, AFC and NFC are going to get the first four spots in the playoffs. So you're automatically going to make it to the playoffs. 

Almost Fans (12:30.798) 

just because you won your division. So first four teams, they make it and they're the one through four seed based on their record. And then there's three more teams that are gonna also be added to the playoff talks. So we're talking about, yeah. Okay, so for example, in the NFC, let's call all of the teams in the NFC cousins. Now, does it matter the NFC? 

north, south, east, west. Does that have any implication or is it just the top four teams in the whole NFC are going to move forward? Great question. So that's what I mean. So you have the north, south, east, west. Those are considered divisions. Okay. The four divisions of the conference. Yeah. So the winner of each division. So you might have a really strong division. NFC North, for example, is what the Packers play in. They had a strong division this year because they had the Packers, the Vikings, 

and the lions, the bears, meh, but like they had three strong teams. So the winner of that division automatically makes it to the playoffs. However, three more teams are considered wild card teams. So those are the next three teams within the conference that have the records. Yes. So you could have multiple teams from the NFC North and you know, whatever that all make it to the playoffs. 

Got it. It's really interesting because a really good example of that this year is Minnesota Vikings played the Lions. It was the very last game of the regular season. They had the same record and they were basically playing for who was going to win their division. So the lions and the Vikings are playing for the NFC North title. The lions end up winning the game, making their record 15 and two. 

But the second best record of the NFC was actually the Vikings. They were tied with the Eagles, but the Eagles had won their division. So even though the Vikings had the second best record in the NFC, because they did not win their division, they were automatically bumped down to the fifth seed because the first four seeds are all the winners of the divisions. So then it's basically just record. 

Almost Fans (14:54.766) 

who has the best record and then they get slotted in in the five, six and seven seeds. So Vikings fifth seed, but because the Lions won and had the best record, they ended up being the number one seed. So the Lions this year were a big headline. There was all sorts of talking about them. Is that because they made it further into the playoffs and they have in a while or ever? Well, 

Great question. So technically, yes. So the Lions ended up being the number one seed in the NFC and they have never in the history of the NFC playoffs been the number one seed. So we talked about this in the first episode, why being the number one seed is so important and it's you get to buy the first week, et cetera. But the other reason why it's so important to be the number one seed is that you get home field advantage for the whole playoffs. 

sleep in your own bed, eat your own food, have your own fans there. Yeah. You get to have all, you know, all the good things and that's never happened for the lions before. And sadly for them, they did end up losing their first game to the commanders. But I was thinking about this from like a business perspective and think about teams like a perfect example is the chiefs. They seem to be like the number one seed basically every year. And that's like, if you make it, 

three guaranteed extra home games for your organization. Like that's millions of dollars per game. We're talking like parking and concessions and the tickets and the other stuff that people are gonna buy while they're there. So like just millions of dollars for an organization to continue being amazing because they're continuing to make money on these games, is just an interesting little- They can play, pay players more, pay coaches more. 

better personnel and the rosters. So one last thing I wanted to get into, which I feel like people get a little bit confused about, and I just wanted to share with everybody a little bit of information about what the rounds are called. So the first round of the playoffs, seven plays two, six plays three, five plays four, that's called the wild card round because all of the teams who were in the wild card, you know, the five, six and seven are all playing. 

Almost Fans (17:19.564) 

Yeah. Yep. So that's considered the wild card round. The second round is considered the divisional round. It just so happened this year in the NFC is what I was just recently looking at is that the one, two, three, and four were all left in the divisional round, you know? So yeah, teams are top teams, guess. Yep. Top teams. Yep. So four teams are left in each conference in the divisional round. And then the last one is the AFC championship and the NFC championship. So that's the two teams that are playing to go to the super bowl. 

And that's that. It's a little bit more. Does that clear it up a little bit? know you makes it confusing. Cool. 

All right, well now I'm going to get into some of the stories and the different things that you're going to hear people talking about. It's kind of just like what's really in the news right now. And a couple of the things when it comes to like the personnel of the players on the team. who to be on the lookout for. So I want to start with first, the thing that you're going to hear the most probably leading up to the Superbowl is that the chiefs are on a quest for a three Pete. You know what that means? It's never been done. 

never been done. It's been done in all of the other major professional sports teams. It's happened with the Bulls, Lakers, it's happened with the Yankees, it's happened with some other NHL teams, but it has never happened in football. That's exciting. So yeah, it's super exciting, but also kind of interesting because people love to hate a team, right? Yeah. They love a villain. 

And I think the only thing holding the Chiefs on from being like the biggest villain in all the land is who? Taylor. Yeah. And Patrick and Jason. No, people love to on them. Yeah, people love to hate them. I mean, yes, I think they are genuinely like on the more lovable side of things. but Taylor holds it down. Taylor's holding it down. think just like the general public. 

Almost Fans (19:26.83) 

The people who don't hate them for like, I think it's the same people who hate the chiefs that just already hated them because Taylor made them so popular. They're just salty. Super salty. brats, dads and dads. Can we also just talk for a second? What is your stance on all the social media noise around conspiracy? Specifically the chiefs and I think three Pete or not. 

Taylor's connected to another Super Bowl. There's more viewers, there's more money. So there was, at some point we were watching the Bills and Chiefs playoffs game and there was a call that I think the two officials thought opposite. Yep, it Josh Allen rushing for one yard or half a yard. I know exactly what you're talking about. And it went in favor of the Chiefs and my husband was sitting next to me he's like, 

here goes social media. This is going to be the play that everybody and there was still what? A whole quarter left of play. again, social media loves a villain, but the truth is Taylor Swift is bringing a lot more viewers to football. I saw all sorts of crazy stats about the increase in specifically female viewership since she started dating Mr. Kelsey. 

This is the thing, my stance on that is- I don't buy it by the way. Yeah, my stance is I will never, never, ever, ever, ever call out an official because I was one. I will not believe that these human beings whose livelihood depends on them doing a good job and making the right call and also being dissected, like heavily dissected, 

with multiple angles of video, multiple angles of video, like everything. people in the officiating world are brutal. mean, brutal. Cause think about boom, boom, like that play happened so fast. The two refs were at different angles, you know? So like they're seeing different things. And also you can watch the replay over a million times, the Josh Allen one. And it's not even totally clear. Yeah. It's not clear. The problem is with what happened is that 

Almost Fans (21:50.52) 

The one ref called it, the other one must've had authority over that other ref to call it. So when he said no, no first down, and then they replay it, so what happens is, let's go to replay booth, there has to be clear and obvious evidence to overturn. Yeah, to reverse it. And if you don't have that, because it's not super clear, they're not gonna overturn it. They're not gonna overturn that call. 

But that is the other, that's the other big story right now. The big story is the chiefs and the refs. And I'm telling you that there's not, there's not enough people out there like saying, you better tell your refs to make these calls. There's just no way there's too much riding on it. You know? So anyways, Amber, I have a question for you. So tell me. 

We're going to go over to the Eagles now for just a couple of big stories. Do you know if I said the words tush push? Oh yeah. Do you know what that means? And can you explain it to our listeners? It means pushing on a tush and especially a tush that's in front of you. And especially when there's just like a teensy beansy amount of yardage, maybe inches to be made up to achieve theoretically a first down maybe or a touchdown. 

Yeah. Push, push. Yeah, that's good. All over this year. I don't know why. Like I think it's the one that's usually doing it though. Who's the one that's a big carrying the ball quarterback. Yeah. So the center snaps it to the quarterback and the quarterback is going to be pushed through all of the linemen to get to yes, the either the goal line or the whatever's online. Yeah. Yeah. And the Eagles made it famous basically. Really? They were so good at it. Yeah. Huh. 

Yeah. so they do a lot thing to tell us on your resume, know? I know. And there was a lot of talk about if they were going to allow it because it's kind of dangerous, right? Like pushing somebody through a bunch of other very large. Yeah. Yeah. All right. A couple more little fun facts just for those of you who are paying attention to some of the other stories. So the coaching. So Andy reads making his sixth Superbowl appearance. 

Almost Fans (24:11.946) 

as chiefs head coach, which is insane. Wow. the second most in NFL history, who do you think has the first most? Bill. Yeah, Bill, Bill with nine appearances with the New England Patriots. Patrick Mahomes has three Superbowl rings with the Kansas city chiefs, which is kind of crazy. he's definitely intoxicating, you know, Brady level goat, goat comes to, yeah, being in the Superbowl. So Patrick Mahomes. 

Is he like, is he a quarterback who runs a lot? Is he mostly a passer? It's a great question. You know who he is most often compared to? Who? Brett Favre. Really? Yeah. So mostly passing then. A lot of passing, but like weird, you know, left-handed. Jump, Okay, so Patrick Mahomes, he does these no look passes and... 

It's kind of just fun to watch, which was really what Brett Favre was, right? Like he was just like a wild man just running around like crazy with his head cut off and you couldn't like contain Brett Favre. It's kind of Patrick Mahomes style. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Not like overly athletic, which honestly neither was Brett Favre. You know, like looking didn't look like a stellar athlete, you know, whatever. super funny. So you have to go back and watch. 

from the AFC championship game, Patrick Mahomes runs in a touchdown and goes to spike the football and it just like slips out of his hand or something. And he looks so unathletic. Everybody has been making fun of him. That's fantastic. I love that for him. So funny. 

What people are like, what even happened? Like how did it happen to like go to spike the ball and it's like floated somewhere not into the ground. was so funny. So yeah. So that's Andy Reed and, Patrick Mahomes, obviously people to watch out for with them. Travis Kelsey, he is their tight end. that doesn't just mean he has a strong booty. He basically has to run the football, catch the football block. 

Almost Fans (26:31.33) 

He's going to go in the hall of fame. You know, we probably considered one of the best tight ends of all time. yeah, that's Travis. And then back to coaches. So Nick Sirianni, he is the Eagles head coach. He's very divisive when it comes to not only everybody, but Eagles fans. like love hate? A little bit, a little bit. I mean, people were calling for him to get fired at the beginning of the year this year. God dang. Yeah. 

So he's only been their coach for four years and he's made it to the Superbowl two out of those four years. So probably going to be considered one of their best coaches ever. and early on in the season, they were playing the Browns, who was one of the worst teams in the NFL this year, and they barely, barely won. And towards the end of the game, I believe the fans were booing cause it was such a bad game. Like his fans, it was a home game. 

were booing and he just starts screaming at the fans, like goes off on them. And like during the game, you know, not like at the end of the game on my way into the tunnel, you guys are jerks, like be better in the middle of the game. Yeah. So that's not great. No, kind of not a good look for Nick. then the funny part about that is you just like 

you know you're going to get eaten alive in the press conference after that because not only did your team play like crap, but you were yelling at your mind. Yeah, your own fans like get it together. So he goes to the press conference with his kids. He brings his kids. You know, they do that to like buff trick. And he is like says, we love our fans when they're 

really good to us and we do really good when they cheer for us and we just don't like it when they boo us like you know like a little child. anyways interesting kind of funny. This press conference is gonna be rough so let me bring my cute little kids so the press will take it just a smidge easier on me. Yeah and then like blame the fans and take 

Almost Fans (28:57.998) 

take ownership for yourself. know, that's a rough game. Lost my cool. Sorry. That's part of it, right? Like you don't get to have the only the good and none of the bad, especially in Philadelphia. Like they're crazy. Yeah, they're crazy out there and you certainly are going to hear it from them when you're playing like crap, you know, so don't be expecting anything different. So anyways, that's that. I looked up the betting odds for this game and 

as of like right after the game. So by time this podcast comes out, things definitely could have changed. But the Chiefs were a one and a half point favorite. It seems so lame. One and a half points. mean, it means they're really expecting it to be a close game. Although it changes like it typically changes throughout the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. So it could change injuries. The Eagles, I think have all of their centers are hurt. 

I think all of them. That's tough. It's really hard to play a game without a salad center. That's the person who snaps the ball to the quarterback. seems important. Amber, do you remember the butt fumble with Mark Sanchez, quarterback of the New York Jets? He's a dude with the hair, right? Yeah, he has hair. But like really amazing, black flowy curly hair. Yes. 

Okay, great. I just wanted to make sure that that was the right visual in my mind. But now tell me about his butt. sounds like. Yeah, yeah. He was the butt fumble quarterback where at the center, like, hiked him the ball and then he went to go run somewhere, tripped over something, did something I can't remember and ran right into the center's butt and then fumbled the ball, which was just like, know, insult to injury. Yeah. And insult for Mark Sanchez. He will never be able to live that down. 

There have been so many but mentions in this episode, but can I just say NFL football is asking for it. They put these dudes in these tight pants and you know, like it's just, there's gotta be just butts in conversations all the time. So we're not sorry, are we? Yeah, no, we're not sorry. And also I wrote a 10 page paper in college about the butt fumble. So. Wow. That's a lot of pages. Yeah. 

Almost Fans (31:20.75) 

Do have a copy of that? I'm sure I could find it. Let me go do some digging. I'd really love to read that. I think I got an A. Of course you did. That's so funny. That's excellent. Yeah. That's pretty much all I had and you can take it away with some more of the drama. 

Almost Fans (31:40.152) 

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Let's talk about more headlines connected to Super Bowl LIX slash 59. So WAGS stands for, I only learned this a couple of months ago, by the way, WAGS stands for Wives and Girlfriends. Let's talk about the WAGS of this year's Super Bowl. I'm gonna start off with the Philadelphia Eagles. And Bree Burrows is the fiance of Eagles quarterback, Jalen Hurts. They met when they were students at University of Alabama and they're super low profile. 

Think of her like the secret wag of the NFL, basically. She's a smart cookie. She holds degrees in Spanish and political science and has an MBA and works or maybe worked for IBM. So, Yeah. Super impressive resume. Really cute couple. They got engaged just a couple months ago in September of 2024. Also, we can't talk about the Eagles without talking about our favorite lady, Queen Kylie Kelsey. 

She's just an honorable mention though because she's a retired wag, I guess. Her husband, Jason Kelsey, used to play for the Eagles and played for the Eagles when the Eagles and the Chiefs met in Super Bowl, shoot, whatever number it was two years ago. Yeah. 57. Anyway, but now he's a commentator, but she's still doing super cool stuff. Okay. On the Kansas city side, Miss Taylor Swift. mean, low key the most famous person. 

Almost Fans (33:56.078) 

in the world probably. They started dating in 2023. She's at the Chiefs games. We already talked about how she has skyrocketed viewership of NFL games, especially among women viewers and women fans. The NFL in general has seen an explosive growth in fan, you know, so the Chiefs ticket sales 

sword when they started dating. Everybody wants to go and be in the same building as Taylor. They want to watch the game. They want to see what she's wearing. She always does this epic tunnel walk. Of course she has a great tunnel walk. That's like what she does for a living. Speaking of other cool gals, Taylor and Brittany Mahomes. So the wife of Patrick Mahomes, they're good friends. wear matchy matchy twin outfits. They're always like hugging and celebrating or you know, whatever. 

Brittany's a former professional soccer player, a fitness entrepreneur, and Brittany and Patrick were high school sweethearts. I love those stories. They just had their third kid and yeah, just really cute girls going on here. One other thing I want to mention related to this, this year's Super Bowl is making all sorts of records in a lot of different ways, mostly tied to football. However, also, 

This is the first year where there's going to be a red carpet fashion show before the Super Bowl. What? Yeah. It's going to be- me more. I so will. It's going be hosted by Olivia Culpo, who's a former Miss Universe, also a fashion influencer, TV personality, et cetera. Also married to Christian McCaffrey. I was wondering about that. 

they said that she was a wag as well. So it's going to start before the Super Bowl and then basically transition seamlessly into the Super Bowl. You got to catch it on Tubi TV. It seems like another way that NFL is trying to grab onto more and different types of audiences, obviously. I would say so. I'm really excited about that. get women into sports. Yeah, we see you. football. Yeah. I want to just really briefly talk about the halftime show. It's Kendrick Lamar. 

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and his guest is Za. I don't know much about either of these two performers, but I've learned a couple of quick things again on Almost Fans. Sometimes we're learning right alongside you. Kendrick Lamar is from Compton and he was inspired by Dr. Dre and Tupac partially because Tupac was filming a music video in his neighborhood. 

And so he got to sort of, you know, see it experience like the hubbub and all the cool stuff that was going on. Did you know Kendrick Lamar has won a Pulitzer Prize? No, that's not just for poetry. That's for other stuff too. What? Did not know that. Yeah. How cool is that? he that's what music is kind of like poetry. Yeah, for sure. That's what I was thinking when I was reading this. So he's the first non-classical or jazz artist to win a Pulitzer Prize. 

Super cool stuff. He's also been listed on Time Magazine's 100 most influential people multiple times. He's super private and he's superstitious. He does not write down his song lyrics because he believes that writing them might limit his creativity. All of that magic stuff that he spits out is just like only living in his brain. How impressive is that? Like, like, like, like a waiter. 

who takes a huge group order without a pen and paper. It always makes you nervous. But those people, they can do it. I've never had one fail. Have you? Don't. It just gives me full anxiety. I could not imagine. No way. No. I would never do it, but I have lots of respect for people who can and can do it well. remember when we were out to lunch that one time and I gave that guy so much crap about taking our order? We had like eight of us. Eight of us. Yeah. 

And I was like, really got, literally, I literally said to him, I was like, really? You can't just like write it down. But he nailed it. He nailed it. Right. He nailed it. And and also we were the only ones in the restaurant. So it's not like he needed to move quickly without a pen and paper. He could have easily taken his time to. Yeah. But it's like, okay. Like why? Like just do it right. Yeah. Because you want to know why this frustrates me and I'm sorry, but because I don't want to have to send it. 

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back if it's wrong. So like just do it right the first time. I mean, again, he did, he did. But like, like you're, you're upping the chances of you getting this messed up and me having to confront you about the issue with my food. And I don't want to do that. And then being that person who needs to it back to get the mayo. I would feel far less bad if they never took notes. Yeah. No. Hey, remember that time you didn't write down what I asked you? 

Yeah, I would fully use paper and pen for every single detail of a food order. Sorry. I totally took us way off track. No, that was the perfect segue because next I want to talk about food at the Super Bowl. We already covered what you should be eating at your Super Bowl watch party. But if you are one of the lucky people who gets to actually go to the Super Bowl, let me tell you what you can eat at the New Orleans Superdome. 

First off, jambalaya. Well, that's was just going to say it better be some New Orleans stuff. Of course. There's jambalaya. Nacho burgers. This is not super New Orleans, but it was just something that made me go, wow. So nacho burgers. It's a burger with cheese sauce, jalapenos, and tortilla chips as toppings. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I'll take two. I will get one of everything I'm about to tell you about. Okay. Next is alligator sausage. Great, right? New Orleans. This should be a thing. You don't like gator? 

Really? It's a little chewy for me. Oh, it's just like chicken. But like it's a gator, so it's even cooler. It's grilled sausage made from alligator meat. It really does taste like chicken. The final food thing I want to tell you about is today's trivia timeout. So this is the fact from today's episode that we triple dog dare you to tell somebody in the next week. The final piece of food at the Superdome at the Super Bowl this year. 

is turducken loaded potatoes. Stop. tell us what turducken means. Oh, it's a turkey with a duck shoved inside of it and then a chicken. Chicken? In this case, it's a chicken. Chicken. Yeah. Ew. Okay. So this is a little bit less 

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graphic and visual, because that's like, like you're shoving animals inside of it. Okay. So in this case, turducken loaded potatoes that you can eat at Superbowl 59 are potatoes, gravy, and then topped with turkey, duck and chicken. I don't think they're all eating each other. I think there's just like various meats on top. So yeah. Do you know who made the turducken like super famous? What sports team is it? It's, no, he was the commentator. no. Who? John Madden. 

Oh, I'm guessing he had it growing up and then he talked about it one time. I think that's the story is he like talked about it one time like while live and then they start doing it for him. Can we just say how long must that meat thermometer be to be able to make sure that the bird inside the bird inside the bird is cooked through? I know. Let's just leave it. We'll just leave it right there. OK, so what? 

So again, we talked a lot about commercials before. I've got some more specific details about commercials and I want to tell you about four you should be on the lookout for. I'm so sorry. Three of them are alcohol. I really tried to get a greater diversity, but here we are. The first is a Stella Artois commercial featuring David Beckham finding a long lost brother in America. dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. 

Okay, next is a Bud Light commercial that has Post Malone struggling to find a backyard party. Woo! Number three is a Pringles commercial that plays up facial hair with Adam Brody, Nick Offerman, so from Parks and Rec. Parks and Rec. And James Harden, such a beautiful beard. Beautiful beard. Beautiful beard. Well maintained. 

Because the Pringles like little round dude has like the mustache. They're playing up that. Okay. And then finally, my heart be still Budweiser is bringing back the Clydesdales. Finally, hold on, hold on to your emotions and grab some Kleenex. It's going to be a story about a baby Clydesdale separated from its herd. I can't wait. I'm so excited. tell me he's separated. I'm so excited. 

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Okay, so next we've got to crank out some bets. Tell me first, which team are you picking to win? I think it's the Chiefs. Okay, I'll go Eagles. That's what I wanted anyway. Okay, Coin toss, heads or tails. 

Like what it's going to be or what they're going to call. What it's going to be. Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You got to choose the team. So I'm going to go with this one. I'm go with tails. Dang. Okay. I'll go heads. Okay. You're next. National anthem length is an average of one minute and 55 seconds. Is this year's going to be over or under? Who's singing it? Do know? John Battiste. 

He's like, like jazzy kind of he fit. He's from New Orleans. So you can like, he fits that vibe. Okay. Okay. under. Okay. I'll go over, my turn, which car brand will have the first commercial? I'm going to say Ford. Yeah, it's always Ford. I'll go Chevy. Okay. Which beer brand will have the first commercial? This one's yours. is Budweiser and Bud Light the same thing? Sure. Yeah. 

Okay. That one. Great. I'm going put Bud. I'm going to say Stella since that was one of the, yeah, Beckham. First team to score a touchdown. I'm going to say Eagles because I'm cheering for the Eagles. Okay. So Kendrick Lamar is our halftime performer and his publicized guest performer is Za. Will there be more guest performers? Yes or no? 

Because there's one announced, I'm going to go no. Okay. My turn. The color of the Gatorade shower. I'm just going to go with orange since that's statistically the highest. Fair enough. And you can finish things out with Wait, do I get to pick another one? yes. Yeah. Go ahead. I pick yellow. All right. Okay. Your last bet. You get the last one here. Who is the MVP going to thank first? God. 

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Okay. I'm going to say the fans. Okay. So listeners, we just wrote down a bunch of bets. We're going to be sharing them on social. We're going to come back to our episode post Super Bowl to find out who won, unless you've been keeping track of all of our bets here. Taryn, are you comfortable with betting that the loser of these bets, so each question is worth one point, whoever gets the fewest points. 

will post on social media her least flattering three haircuts of all time. Done. I already have my pictures ready to go. This is the thing. I don't know that I'm going to be able to find much, but I mean, I'll just have to go dive into Facebook. Die. Jen, tell her to My mom never took any pictures of me, so I'm safe. Okay. Go through newspaper clippings in Daddy LaFerny's office. 

my gosh. Yeah, he probably for sure has. Okay, so we're going to finish today's episode with my personal favorite part of every episode, which is the She's Got Game segment. We're going to highlight a woman doing awesome things in sports or rather today doing awesome things to market sports. Hold on to your butts. Yeah. Okay, so I'm telling you. 

You heard that quotes from Jurassic Park? No, but I've heard. Well, I've heard you say it. My kids like grab their cheeks like what? OK, a lot of talk today. But there's so many butts in this. I really, I really enjoy that. Her name is Samantha Wood. She's a Pennsylvania native hometown fan of the Eagles. Grandpa Wood don't know if that's actual name is a season ticket holder in case that tells you how deep her Eagles roots go. 

She is also the digital platforms manager for the Philadelphia Eagles. Alert, alert. At some point this year, we're going to have an entire episode dedicated to digital marketing. So come on back for that. Maybe Samantha will be our guest. We're going to manifest it right now. Dear Samantha, slide into our DMs. Under her leadership, slip, slip into our DMs. Under her leadership, the Eagles social media platforms have substantially grown. 

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The Eagles at this point because of her are one of the NFL's most powerful social media presences. They're crushing it on Facebook, on Twitter, Instagram. She and her department are just doing a really great job. By the way, before she worked with the Eagles, she spent seven years working in hockey. And one of these jobs that she applied for to work to do social media for a hockey team, they gave her a hockey quiz and she failed with flying colors. They hired her anyway. 

And then they made her flashcards so that she could learn hockey lingo and terminology. I Me and her both. I know. But look at that learn it all. You know what? I didn't do well at that. They hired me anyway. So I'm going to work really hard to figure this out on my own. So she talks about her strategy doing social media with the Eagles. She talks about how it's super important to be authentic. The fans can smell it when you're forcing something or being fake. She talks about how the trends and the fans interests 

are ever changing. has to be really adaptable. Whatever the fans were loving and eating up last season might not be what they love this season. And the further into playoffs, obviously Super Bowl, here we are, but the further along that the team gets, the higher stakes it is. But on game day, she says it's all hands on deck. You'll see her running around the sidelines, capturing content, getting photos and videos. She talks about her audience and how she's aware that there's a huge range and she wants to speak to all of them. This makes me think of us, Taryn. 

Because we have some people who listen, who are avid fans and maybe know a lot about what we're talking about. And then some who are like, I don't even know. I know what a football looks like. I know what NFL stands for. And then that's kind of it. But Samantha talks about how some fans like her are just casual and chill. Some want to know the stats and the X's and the O's. So she puts together content to kind of hit all of them. So sports in general is a super competitive industry. 

and sports marketing is a predominantly male industry. Shocker. Shocker. She talks about overcoming the stigma of not knowing as much. Here's a direct quote. You're never going to win the battle when it comes to naming the quarterback in the 1933 championship game. I'm never going to win when it comes to citing stats, but when I can win is being the best in my niche. I let my actions speak louder than my words. 

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I love that. totally just speaks to the almost fans ethos community we're trying to build, right? Where we maybe don't know all the answers, but we try really hard and we love to learn and we embrace people who have all sorts of different backgrounds. I feel that because sometimes I don't even remember what the quarterback now's name is. Like that's my flaw in life. can not ever remember anyone's names. 

I really hard. keep really good notes. 1933. Yes. But she talks, she doesn't use these words, but she talks about imposter syndrome, right? Totally get that. We've never run a podcast before. What are we doing? We're just talking like friends. Here we are. So there's just a lot of things as I was learning about her that I totally related to. So that is why I wanted to tell you about Samantha Wood today. And that is why she has earned our slot for the She's 

got game segment. Cool. And that's a wrap on our Super Bowl 59 hype episode. Our next episode is the ultimate post game breakdown. And we know you're all coming back just to see the bad haircut photos, hot takes and more. Thanks for tuning in to Almost Fans today. We hope you learned a little, laughed a lot and maybe found a few new reasons to be as excited for the Super Bowl as we are. 

Toss your own predictions and your own bets on social media. Tag us at AlmostFansPodcast. We're really excited y'all. See you next time AlmostFans.