Super Bowl XLII is right around the corner and the moment is rushing toward us. Unless the Hand of God intervenes, time will not be played the fool; it will be satisfied.

And the bells are tolling. And players are preparing to heed their call, wondering how it will go for them when the bells stop and the whistles begin. The drama will only get worse as the day approaches and, for many players, time and pressure will become their biggest enemy.

I love the game of football and see beauty in its brutality; I love literature and see understanding in its wordiness. But I never thought I would have found a piece of literature that would capture the essence of the game like I did on Wednesday night.

I was reading the last poem ever published by Edgar Allen Poe before his early retirement, The Bells, and thought the bells sounded a lot like football players and the game of football.

Here’s an excerpt:

Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

I think Poe would have loved the NFL.