THE SOUPER BOWL
Souper Bowl I: This Is the Worst
By Jay Caspian Kang at
And so we come to this: Two cream-based seafood soups with New England roots battling it out for the Souper Bowl championship.
And so we come to this: Two cream-based seafood soups with New England roots battling it out for the Souper Bowl championship.
Live from the Bud Light Hotel in Indy, it's more of the BS Report!
What, two hours of podcast content on Thursday was more than enough for you? How dare you? What about two more parts and two more hours of babbling? In Part 1, Patriots president Jonathan Kraft talked about Sunday's game, how to run an NFL organization, why the 18-game schedule isn't a bad idea, his mother's lasting legacy and how the Patriots might have handled that Peyton Manning-Indy situation if it had happened with Tom Brady. (Listen to Part 1 on the ESPN.com Podcenter or on iTunes.)
In Part 2, Kevin Wildes and Joe House went on a half-baked idea frenzy. You'll never think about Leap Year the same way again. (Listen to Part 2 on the ESPN.com Podcenter or on iTunes.)
As we enter the last few days of the Souper Bowl, I think it's safe to say that we've all learned a lot of valuable lessons: what it means to overcome adversity, and the significance of having a unified vision for success, for starters. But most importantly, we've learned a lot about ourselves. (Namely, we've learned that we all care way too much about soup and an online tournament of soups put together by a group of people who run a sports and culture website on the Internet means way too much to us.)
You know what's good luck for a Patriots Super Bowl win? Flying to the host city a few days early, bringing my buddy House, and taping multiple podcasts from the Bud Light Hotel. I know it sounds like a weird superstition, but I've been doing it since 2001, even before podcasts were invented.
Today's two-parter kicked off with the NFL Network's Mike Lombardi talking about Sunday's game, Peyton Manning's next stop and who is the worst possible Redskins QB to revile House. Then reality czar David Jacoby reviewed The Challenge and the Souper Bowl.
"Your quick dismissal of French Onion is going to come back and bite you," Friend of Grantland Jason warned us in the comments section.
"Hot and Sour and Lobster Bisque are both flashy niche soups; no play in the heartland," (Apparent) Souper Bowl Analyst Mark wrote after Alphabet made its exit. "They will get thrashed by a traditional powerhouse with good old-fashioned fundamentals."
"Vegetable is just a staple of American culture, I would think," said my grandmother, who was "disappointed" in its performance in Souper Bowl I.
Excellent feedback, Jason, Mark, and Grandmother Larimer! Honestly, the Grantland Twitter feed and Facebook page has been BLOWING UP with soup-related comments all week and, as a soup enthusiast, I could not be more thrilled. I could talk about Potato Cheddar for days.
Below you'll find a few of our favorite Soup-related comments from the past few days. Thanks to Grantland's Senior Soupologist, Rafe Bartholomew, who pulled this post together. Check back here for the Souper Bowl I: Day 3 results later in the day.
The first day of Souper Bowl I saw only one significant upset, as the old men from Tomato used a combination of ugly post moves, spot-up jumpers, and "blue collar"-ness to take down Broccoli Cheddar. Before action began Monday morning, many tournament pundits were wondering how Broccoli Cheddar received such a high ranking in the first place, as it is more of a tertiary soup. If you replaced the broccoli in Broccoli Cheddar with any other stalky vegetable, would it be diminished in any way? If you ordered it in a restaurant and the waiter brought you Potato Cheddar soup instead, would you really care? Does Broccoli Cheddar really have an identity on its own? Or is it the University of North Carolina at Greensboro of soups?
Jalen and I decided that the Super Bowl is boring. Not, like, the game. We mean the lead-up to the game. Gronkowski is going to play, Eli is “elite,” and Bill Belichick is a great coach. Ho-freaking-hum. So instead of going over tired Super Bowl storylines, we dove right into the exciting NBA season. We talked about the Heat and how their depth is going to win them the East. We talked about how close the West was. We talked about Kobe and the Lakers' trouble on the road. And we talked about Dwight Howard because you really can’t say anything about the NBA without talking about Dwight Howard. We tried.
Oh yeah, we also talked about the Souper Bowl, which I am way more excited about than the Super Bowl.
Listen to Monday's podcast here:
ESPN.com Podcenter
Subscribe to the Grantland Network on iTunes, and check out our podcasts page.
Previously on the Grantland Network:
The Basketball Jones
Jonah Keri with Tyler Kepner
Men in Blazers
Follow Jalen Rose on Twitter at @jalenrose.
