My journalistic pursuits these days lean more towards running, healthy eating, and fitness than football. Make no mistake, though—Super Bowl Sunday is one of the best days of the year for me! Sheila and I have thrown a Super Bowl party every year for seven years now, and it’s definitely my favorite party of the year.

I love everything about Super Bowl Sunday—the game (of course!), the commercials, the friends, the food, and even the Puppy Bowl! (I actually still need to watch the Puppy Bowl–got too caught up in Super Bowl pregame hype!) Admittedly, the day is always a bit bittersweet because I know that several miserable months with no football commence as soon as the game ends, but I try not to dwell on that too much.

Yesterday was our best Super Bowl party ever, in my opinion! I was a bit bummed during the day because a few people cancelled on us and I was wondering if we would have a good turnout. Once a few friends arrived early, though, I started feeling better. By the time I ran upstairs and changed into my Tim Couch jersey, our entire kitchen was full!

Our guests dined on the following food:

Talk about a feast!

Here’s the spread and the beautiful woman who cooked all of the food:

The only thing that we had left at the end of the night were a few cookies and some chips. Great work, everyone!

As it turned out, we had a fantastic turnout and a great party! Over 30 people attended and from what I could tell everyone seemed to have a great time. To my delight, everyone also ate very well! For the first time in our party’s history, we had NO leftovers at the end. I’m all for healthy eating and fitness, but in my opinion Super Bowl Sunday is a day on which we can all press pause on our diets and New Year’s Resolutions and enjoy ourselves. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, to say the least. Evidently Butters did as well—he spent the evening receiving nonstop attention and nibbling away at any food that was on the ground, and he partied so much that he’s spent most of the day sleeping!

I think he got into the beer after we went to bed…he’s still sleeping off a hangover!

Best of all, the game was very exciting. I’ve seen plenty of thrilling comebacks in my lifetime to know that turning a game off early can be a mistake. Even when the 49ers were down by a significant margin I knew that the game would still turn out to be a great one, and I was glad that my faith was rewarded by a thrilling finish.

With another exciting and memorable NFL season now in the books, my energies will now be focused on hoping that my Cleveland State Vikings can get it together before the Horizon League Tournament and make a surprise run to the NCAA Tournament and keeping an eye on the Browns’ offseason moves.

Before I go, though, I’d like to publicly acknowledge how grateful I am to have a wife who allows me to indulge my love for all things NFL. Sheila has told me many times that she never thought that she’d marry a sports fanatic, and I’m sure she never expected to marry a guy who instantly agreed to her suggestion of wine and gold as our wedding colors just because he wanted to work the Cavs’ colors into the wedding ceremony. Nevertheless, Sheila was once again a fantastic football widow this season, and I look forward to taking her on a few fun and romantic dates as a thank-you! I was especially grateful for the fact that she gave me two games’ worth of Browns tickets for our five year anniversary, and I’m thankful that she tolerates the fact that my idea of a perfect fall Sunday is to camp out in front of the television with a full slate of NFL action. I also appreciated that she put together an epic spread for our Super Bowl party in the midst of a very stressful and busy week, and the applause that she got from our guests doesn’t even begin to reflect how grateful I am to have a woman in my life who is willing to make sacrifices in order to help me feel loved and appreciated. I’m a blessed guy!

Go Browns!