Columnist Chuck Klosterman kept a blog all last week on the events surrounding Super Bowl XL, and it’s well worth a read.

The Super Bowl is an event-driven event. Its whole existence is predicated on the exaggeration of hype, so the game’s “hype number” is always above 95. It’s a 95 regardless of who’s involved. And the grim reality is that a matchup on that caliber only happens once or twice a decade. The NFL is so skilled at promoting itself that it latently makes Super Bowl games more boring than they are.