Super Bowl week has jumped the shark.

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Earlier this week, a reporter at the Super Bowl asked San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy the following:

“There are pictures of you and Lee Harvey Oswald circling around the internet right now. People think you two look alike. Have you ever heard that before?”

Purdy looked confused. He shut his eyes when Oswald’s name was mentioned and then tried to stay as poised as he does when facing a pass rush. His expression conveyed the obvious: What the heck is this?

“I haven’t,” Purdy said. “That’s my first time hearing it.”

What do you think about it?

“Ah. Eh. Yeah. I don’t know.”

You might have seen this exchange. Video of it went sort of viral, and plenty of other outlets aggregated it because, well, who the hell knows.

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Super Bowl media day long ago descended into a cast of gimmicks, bits and comedians. One time, a television reporter from Mexico wore a wedding dress and asked both Tom Brady and Eli Manning to marry her. And you haven’t truly lived until you’ve seen Bill Belichick get asked a question by a puppet.

So hey, have fun. It’s just football.

Yet at some point during this Super Bowl week, the tide seemed to turn from the above to repeated attempts to score viral social media content, with wilder and wilder and often more and more unfair questions. There seems to be no sense to any of it.

The players and coaches have become circus animals to be poked and prodded, all for a chance to get a reaction that will get traction. You could argue this is part of their job — promoting the Super Bowl — but they aren’t in on the joke as much as they are the joke.

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In another media conference, Kansas City coach Andy Reid was asked the following:

“What do you say about the conspiracies that have popped up concerning Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, like some kind of Republican conspiracies that you guys made it to the Super Bowl to secretly help reelect President Biden?”

Reid looked understandably confused. Exactly how said conspiracy would even work was not addressed. You couldn’t have blamed Reid if he had pointed out that he has Patrick Mahomes going for him, and that might be why his team has reached four of the past five Super Bowls.

Yet an honest answer might come off the wrong way. So Reid deftly smiled. “Hmm,” he said, laughing. “That’s way out of my league.” He then shifted to saying how nice Taylor Swift is.

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