Time for the gladiatorial finale of football season

ONWARD THRU THE FOG. Feb. 5, 2026.

Super Bowls are the same and different in two important ways.

They are different—call me Captain Obvious—in that the teams vary from year to year. And even if it were the very same two teams, the players would be different in the lineups.

This year’s championship will be played on Sunday, February 8, in Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Santa Clara, in case your Left Coast geography is a little rusty, is part of the greater San Jose area and is where the San Francisco team plays.

Why does a San Francisco team play in San Jose? For the same reason, the New York teams play in New Jersey: They needed better corporate luxury seats. This is America, after all, and this is a game for millionaire players and billionaire owners.

There’s also the fact that the stadium won’t be busy since San Francisco won’t be using it on Super Bowl Sunday, anyway.

This year’s combatants will, in fact, be the Seattle Seahawks and the hated New England Patriots.

I say hated because I am a lifelong Miami Dolphins fan, and Dolfans hate, hate, hate New England because of the way Tom Brady used deflated footballs, and we do not condone cheating. When we get edged out of the playoffs year after year after year, we do it with integrity.

Anyway, back to why all championship games are the same. It’s because the annual gladiatorial contest traces its roots to ancient Rome. How else to explain the National Football League’s Roman numeral fetish? It’s kind of weird, really.

The World Series, in contrast, is simply known by the year in which it is played, which is the same year as the regular season.

Football, for reasons having to do with millionaires and billionaires and grubbing as many ticket sales and TV ads as possible, doesn’t end sensibly at the end of the calendar year. No, it has to spill over into January and, for the big game, February.

If they just stretched it out a little longer, they could bump up against Spring Training, which this year begins on February 20.

So, the NFL, because this is all so confusing, decided way back in the distant past, even before the Dolphins stopped attending playoff games, to use the aforementioned Roman numerals.

This year’s big matchup will be Super Bowl LX (or 60), which is far more dignified than last year’s LIX, which sounded a little suggestive if you asked me. Which, of course, you didn’t.

Onward

February 5. National Shower with a Friend Day. The theoretical inspiration for this holiday is ostensibly to save water. But it does stand as a stark counterpoint to Shower with an Enemy Day, which doesn’t, as far as I know, exist.

February 6. Lame Duck Day. This holiday celebrates Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s last year in public office. Well, okay, it doesn’t. It actually marks the signing of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, which shortened the amount of time presidents, senators and representatives got to spend in office after elections.

February 7. Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day. It’s silly, of course, but if you are a morning yogurt, fruit and granola kind of guy like me, just substitute ice cream for the yogurt and you can still pretend it’s healthy.

February 8. Super Bowl. This year’s halftime show headliner is Bad Bunny, which will be interesting given our current political climate, since Bad Bunny is an outspoken critic of ICE.

February 9. National Pizza Day. And in case you were wondering, yes, it is not only okay, but desirable, to add pineapple to pizza. Have some with your ice cream for breakfast.

February 10. Umbrella Day. For readers of our London Edition, it is known as Brolly Day. You are also allowed to call it a bumbershoot for reasons too obscure to dwell upon.

February 11. Don’t Cry over Spilled Milk Day. Chin up. Things will get better. That’s what this day is about, not literally, the actual spillage of milk. Although if you are in a contrarian frame of mind and in need of a good cry, I suppose you could tip a glass over. You be you.

J.C. Bruce is an award-winning journalist and author of the Strange Files series of mysterious adventures. He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and Florida. Check out his website, jcbruce.com, for details on how to order copies of his books. Copyright, 2026, J.C.Bruce