Super Bowl XLVIII: who the bloody hell should you go for?

Sport’s greatest show on Earth is only days away but what’s that, you don’t know who to cheer for?

Maybe your favourite team was too rubbish to make the big day, maybe you haven’t watched an NFL match since Dick Butkus retired or maybe you just don’t know your laterals from your Lombardis.

Whatever the case, if you’ve got your jockstrap caught on the fence and can’t bear to watch a sporting event without cheering for one team to be murderously crushed into a bloody pulp then you’ve come to the right place.

Using a set of carefully designed KPIs, here’s who you should back this Monday!

Quarterbacks
While I may have been accused of some slight bias in the past, it’s pretty hard for any football fan to not have some sort of Peyton Man(ning) crush.

The Broncos quarterback is just so damn likable, and possesses a talent that makes even the most fevered seppo helmet-head hater stop and stare in slack-jawed awe.

This is not to say the Seahawks’ Russell Wilson is some sort of NFL Blake Ferguson in comparison. Far from it, as the young Seahawk quarterback is an extremely intelligent and well-spoken young man off the field, and an equally cool customer on the gridiron.

It’s a tough choice, but with plenty of time on Wilson’s side and Manning’s inspiring comeback from injury, number 18 gets the nod here.

Team to support: Broncos.

Coaches
Both Super Bowl coaches look like the cool uncle at your family BBQ who despite the grey hair always seems to dominate your touch footy games. It’s a tough choice.

Broncos coach John Fox wins the feel good vote for his ability to take his team to the big one so soon after serious heart surgery.

On the other hand Pete ‘Big Balls’ Carroll (not my nickname), despite some serious scuttlebutt during his college coaching years, has recently been voted the ‘most popular coach in the NFL’.

Feel good always trumps popularity though.

Team to support: Broncos.

Jerk bags
If you don’t love either side, you can always just pick the one you hate least, right?

Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman made sure he’d be the bloke twisting his moustache deviously on Monday with his huge post-match spray in the NFC Championship match.

While Denver’s players may have tried to play the nice guy card, wide receiver Wes Welker’s loudmouth former Miss Hooters International wife is sure to be flapping her gums in the stands again for the papers.

Loudmouth player or loudmouth self-entitled WAG? Give us the trash-talking player any day!

Team to support: Seattle.

Australia!
When in doubt, find a dubious Australian connection.

But in this case it isn’t so dubious, with Queensland man mountain Jesse Williams leading Seattle through a fantastic season.

Okay, so he’s been injured all year and hasn’t played a game, but he’s still officially a Seahawk and hardly Brian Bosworth in the bust stakes.

The Broncos? Well they did play a game in Australia at ANZ Stadium, provided the business model for the Brisbane Broncos and let St Kilda hang out with them last year.

ANZ Stadium? Brisbane? St Kilda? Uggghhhr.

Team to support: Clearly the winner is Seattle.

Fans
Lunatics, the lot of them.

To make a call between two such monumental, rabid fan-bases is likely to leave me at risk of being either denied entry to Starbucks for life or having my John Denver collection confiscated going through US Customs

Alas, as a caffeine-addicted country boy, I can’t do without either.

Team to support: Draw!

So there you go sports fans it’s a tie, which means you’re just going to have to decide whether your bandwagoning butt looks better in fluoro green or orange.

But just remember it doesn’t really matter who wins or loses, but how many buffalo wings you can eat.