If you’re going to a Super Bowl party next week…and you don’t want to sound “OUT OF TOUCH”…you’d better spend some time to get up to speed on the vernacular of the game and the broadcast. 

Have you ever felt left out of the loop… just from the vocabulary used today by sports broadcasters?

The dictionary describes that language as vernacular. I can live with somebody running for a touchdown and the announcer telling me “he took it to the house.” And maybe most of the audience will know what is going on when they are told “who ever wins the turnover battle will probably win this game.”

But I’m convinced that much of this “vernacular” is to separate the true fan from the guy who just wants to watch the game but isn’t welcome into this hallowed fraternity of “sports junkies in America.”

Pick a pet phrase and you have to believe it’s used to make the casual fan feel like he just doesn’t belong.

We’ll start with “BODY OF WORK.” This one is used when referring to the career accomplishments of a player or coach. But if we say “BODY OF WORK,” those who are in the know, or sports junkie fraternity brothers have used the password to get into the door of sports talk for the day.

One of the newest catch phrases is “SKILL SET.” What do you think this really means? To the sports fan, it’s another entry work to the club but to you and me who really don’t care if the doorman lets us in or not, “SKILL SET” is just telling other sports junkies the level of physical ability the player has to play a particular game.

Another new entry to the “sports vernacular” is “PASS THE EYE TEST.” I really am not sure what this is all about. But if I had to guess, it’s just another way of saying, “Looking at him, I think he can play.”

If you want to get to the VIP section of the sports club, there is one phrase you have to say with authority and that’s “COACH HIM UP.”

I guess that means a coach has to take a player that really doesn’t “PASS THE EYE TEST” and give him extra help so that he can overcome a lack of a high level “SKILL SET.”

But I could be wrong. Just remember, if you want to get into that VIP section of the sports club, ask somebody else what “COACH HIM UP” really means. You don’t want to be denied entry to the VIP section because you listened to what I told you.

The guys who don’t need to be “COACHED UP” are the players who have a lot of “UPSIDE.”

You know. They are the players who “PASS THE EYE TEST” and have a tremendous “SKILL SET” that will allow then to “PLAY ON THE NEXT LEVEL” (NFL) or if you prefer, “PLAY ON SUNDAYS NEXT SEASON.”

Which brings us to those who have a Master’s Degree in Sports B.S. and have no friends or family outside the world of sports.

They will begin the season going to a series of the team’s “OTA’s.” This is one I had to look up because very few stories explained this acronym.

For the unwashed or the ill-informed, an “OTA” is an NFL team’s “OPTIONAL TEAM ACTIVITY.”

But if you want to get the real definition, just give former NBA player Allen Iverson a call. He’ll tell you, “We’re talking about PRACTICE. We’re not talking about games, we’re talking about PRACTICE.”

But why would a sports junkie be locked into the simple when a password like “OTA” will keep you from knowing it’s just PRACTICE?

And when you get to practice, be sure to watch for a player who has been COACHED UP” to get his share of “REPS” because if he doesn’t get his share of “REPS” at an “OTA,” he just might not “PASS THE EYE TEST” and have very little hope of improving his “SKILL SET.”

If you haven’t guessed, “REPS” are practice plays that a player or a unit may run in PRACTICE order to get it right for the GAME.

And when we reach game time, you better be ready to determine if the team is running the “WEST COAST OFFENSE.”

In reality, nobody really knows what the “WEST COAST OFFENSE” is.

I checked for stories on the “WEST COAST OFFENSE” and found former Ohio State coach Francis Schmidt might have been the originator back in the 1930s with Sid Gillman, a former Ohio State assistant under Schmidt and later coach of the San Diego Chargers part of that family tree. The modern sports junkies give all the credit to Bill Walsh of the San Francisco 49ers and others give limited credit to the style to Chargers and St. Louis Cardinals coach Don Coryell.

The sports media and its junkies just toss that phrase around to put you on the defensive. If they toss it around enough, it’s that much less likely that you will call them on it, keeping you on the outside of the sports fraternity for yet another day.

That will keep you and other casual fans at arm’s length and force you to have a sports fraternity member really explain to you what the hell a “FRANCHISE QUARTERBACK” really is.

I recently listened to a sports talk show where the term “FRANCHISE QUARTERBACK” was used no fewer than 50 times in an hour and each voice coming out of the radio had to use it a few times to make sure their membership card was still in good standing.

It might be much easier to replace the term “FRANCHISE QUARTERBACK” by asking if the team has a star player at the position but that would allow too many non-sports junkies into the conversation and we don’t want that to happen, do we?

And to think, just a few seasons ago we were worried about figuring out the responsibilities of an “H-BACK” and today, the conversation has quickly turned to the fad that was the “WILDCAT OFFENSE.”

For those who missed the comet in the sky that was the “WILDCAT OFFENSE,” just Google the term “SINGLE WING,” which was something football teams ran in the 1930s and 1940s but received a new sports junkie name of “WILDCAT OFFENSE.”

There is no difference in the “SINGLE WING” and “WILDCAT OFFENSE.” Both have the ball going on direct center snap to the best running threat on the team instead of going through the “FRANCHISE QUARTERBACK” to hand off the ball.

Which brings us to the password of all passwords among the sports media today. When you sign on to work for an organization like ESPN, I think you are under strict orders to tell the history of the NFL in one particular way.

And that’s to refer to any historical reference for the NFL as “SINCE THE MERGER.”

You see, since ESPN didn’t exist until 1978, there was really no NFL before any of the current announcers were born. So, they back pedal a few years and give you anything that happened since 1970 when the world of football according to today’s media, began. They fudge a bit and admit to the world of football really beginning on Jan. 15, 1967 when the Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs at the Los Angeles Coliseum for the “World Championship of Football.”

The reason they give you those first three Super Bowls played “BEFORE THE MERGER” is so they have a uniform set of games that the NFL wants the public to put into one historical folder.

But you can be sure that each and every player up for Hall of Fame honors will have his Super Bowl credentials examined as the determining point in election and the rest who played “BEFORE THE MERGER” had their chance and are not worthy of serious consideration.

I hope this improves your “SKILL SET” for watching next week’s Super Bowl. Remember, there will be a lot of sports fraternity junkies at the party you will be going to and they’ll be checking to see if you’re being “COACHED UP” or you really know what “AFTER THE MERGER” means…and really know that only Cleveland, Detroit, Houston and Jacksonville have never reached the Super Bowl while Cleveland is the only city to never play in or host the Super Bowl.