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Most Americans, however, will do as Columnist Art Buchwald does, and watch the game with buddies. His car-pool gang, which faithfully treks to Redskin games and includes such notables as Jack Valenti and Joe Califano, gathers, says Buchwald, "because we want to be with close friends at that hour."
Indeed, it is tradition that most nourishes Super Bowl madness. It is the last big Sunday afternoon before the tube, the clocking in of the final moments of the estimated 9 billion man-hours that Americans annually spend watching football on television. This Sunday, for example, Portland Attorney Jack Faust, his son Charlie and his friend Harry Johnston will drive through the city's all-but-deserted streets to the home of Faust's father to observe their rites. That is where they settled into casually selected chairs ten years ago to eat hot dogs and watch the first Super Bowl. Now none of them accept an invitation anywhere else on Super Bowl day. "I know that Dad, Charlie, Harry and I are going to be right there at the 50-yard line in front of Dad's 23-inch screen, sitting in those same seats and eating hot dogs. Some things in life are habit forming, and the Super Bowl is one of them."
Lavish parties have become a habit too during Super Bowl week, the most extravagant being the N.F.L.'s own $100,000 press bash two nights before the game. This annual ritual has been held at such expansive sites as Houston's Astrodome and Miami's Hialeah race track and is attended by some 2,500 revelers, among them a portion of the 1,900 journalists accredited to cover the game.
All this swirling hoopla has its raison d'étre: a football game really will be played. Oddly enough, Super Bowl XI pits two teams desperately seeking to shed their reputations for losing the games that matter the most. Only one will. In secluded hotels and on practice fields carefully guarded against skulking spies from the other camp, the Minnesota Vikings and Oakland Raiders are preparing for each other; they are far away from the pols and press, the celebs and network salesmen who come to glory in the Super Bowl carnival.
From a spectator's point of view, this could be one of the most exciting and wide-open Super Bowls ever—a break from the often anticlimactic, caution-bedeviled struggles that have so often made the contest less than super. The teams are unfamiliar with each other, the Vikings having played the Raiders only once (Minnesota won 24-16 in 1973). Which strategies will work against the other team—and which will fail? Without previous experience against their opponents, coaches and quarterbacks tend to try a little of everything, probing for weaknesses. Both teams have strong offenses and solid, but not overwhelming defenses; that makes taking some chances and moving the ball an inviting and logical tactic.
The Oakland Raiders are the Designated Bad Boys of pro football. They are led by Al Davis, their onetime coach, now managing general partner, a man whose name can rightfully be preceded by the title "Master Schemer." Depending on whose ox is being gored, this means that he has smeared grease on uniforms to make slippery runners slipperier still, or it means he had the good sense to do what no one had ever done—make a punter his No. 1 draft pick. That is what he did in choosing Ray Guy in 1973. As a result, Davis explains, "I