The NFL added a little pizzazz to the first round of its postseason a few years back when it decided to rename the Wild Card round the — wait for it — SUPER Wild Card round. That’s right, baby: After the NFL opted to add a seventh team to the AFC and the NFC playoffs in 2021, the league started calling it the Super Wild Card, which is kinda like a regular wild card, only … different.
The fine folks over at NFL Network decided to really lean into this on Saturday morning ahead of this weekend’s slate of games, which begins with the San Francisco 49ers playing host to the Seattle Seahawks and runs until Monday night, when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers take on the Dallas Cowboys. They did this by leaning into that word, “Super,” and having a bunch of analysts dress up like superheroes and pick the player who most needs to have a super performance. My second favorite one of these is Steve Mariucci dressing up like Spider-Man and really struggling with it, but the best, by a mile, is Michael Irvin laying on a table and pretending to fly in a full Superman outfit.
We don't call it SUPER Wild Card Weekend for nothing 🤷♂️😂@richeisen @SteveMariucci @kurt13warner @cfrelund @michaelirvin88 @rachelbonnetta @ESanders_10 pic.twitter.com/YTSxgnxWm1
— NFL GameDay (@NFLGameDay) January 14, 2023
Even Pat McAfee, who quite literally moonlights as a professional wrestler, was wondering what the hell was going on.
Hahahaha what the helllll is going on @richeisen?
I don’t know what he was saying or doing.. but the mere silhouette of @SteveMariucci in full Spidey costume made me pop a good bit 😂😂@JimIrsay, we need Mooch as Spider-Man for next yr’s Marvel games pic.twitter.com/3U02r4aBBX
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) January 14, 2023
ESPN if you are reading this, you can have Michael Irvin do this stuff on First Take with Stephen A. Smith and I promise you it would go over great.
