A Super Bowl Ring (Toss)

You'll need something to do on Sunday

Super Bowl LX is this Sunday. In case you are unfamiliar with Roman numerals, LX stands for “I wish anyone else was playing besides the Seahawks and the Patriots.”

If you are like the majority of Americans this year, you’ll be heavily invested in the commercial breaks, and looking for anything else to do when the game is on. And let’s face it – your Super Bowl pool numbers are crap and you can only eat so much guacamole. (And in case you don’t remember last year, the amount of guacamole you CAN eat is very different from the amount you SHOULD eat.)

So what can you do this year after the guacamole sweats subside? Inflatable football ring toss hats, obviously!

Just in time for the big game, I stumbled across this treasure at our local Goodwill yesterday:

“Why on Earth would someone get rid of this amazing treasure so close to Super Bowl Sunday?” you may be asking yourself.

I have no idea. The world is a mysterious place.

You will notice on my model the rings are labeled with standard American football scoring. There are three rings – red for a 7-point touchdown, green for a 3-point field goal, and purple for the Super-Bowl-pool-score-ruining 2-point safety.

Why don’t they have a 1-point extra point ring, in pigskin brown? I am assuming because of the Chinese international ring toss game standard maximum ring count of three.

Now I know what you’re thinking – “Smidge, I NEED this for my Super Bowl party so people don’t leave when the guacamole runs out. But there’s no way there are any more of these at the Goodwill. Surely everyone else is hanging onto theirs. You found a unicorn, there. What will I do??”

Have no fear, intrepid party hosts! If there is one thing Amazon.com is good for, it’s funding a Blue Origin flight so Katy Perry could get launched into “space” from Texas for three whole minutes and come down in a slightly different part of Texas.

Wait, no… what Amazon.com is good for is getting things like inflatable football hat ring toss games to your doorstep before this Sunday. How do they do it? Katy Perry drops your things from space, that’s how.

Sadly, my Gridiron Nation model seems to be discontinued, but you have several other choices.

There’s this version:

It will do the job, and seems to come from a couple different Chinese inflatable ring toss conglomerates. If you’re not into the above Meridian Point Distinctive Mercantile brand you can always go with this no-name brand:

As you can see, its billed as The perfect Sunday football party game!, and I don’t think you’re going to get an argument about that from your guests. I mean, who’s having more fun than these folks shown on the packaging? Absolutely anyone else no one!

Sadly, these two green models don’t have the cool yardage markers on the bulbous hat portion like mine, and the rings aren’t labeled for scoring, so you will be forced to make up your own rules. That could be problematic during the second half of the beer cooler, if you know what I mean.

If you don’t want your party guests to be confused on whether or not your ring toss game is football-themed, you might consider this option, so they will have an actual football tied to their heads:

Be warned, however, there is only one cool football/goal post hat included.

For the pair, go with this option:

Sadly, even though they nailed the football theme with the hat itself, the ring scoring is not standard to football like mine is. They have chosen the no-context-at-all 25/50/100 scoring system with these, and I have to assume that’s because it’s illegal to watch football in China when you should have your head down at the factory making ring toss hats.

I know you’re probably already on Amazon browsing your choices and daydreaming about how epic your Super Bowl party will be this year despite the fact that it’s Seattle vs. New England and no one cares, but I want to warn you – there is some photoshopping going on out there that can be misleading.

Case in point, this joyous family game in the backyard:

Someone with a photoshop account and absolutely zero hands-on experience with inflatable football hat ring toss produced this image. I can assure you that the ring toss hat the boy is wearing is NOT four feet in length, and the rings are not the size of cruise ship life preservers.

On the other hand, we have this:

While this image is obviously (poorly) digitally enhanced, this could be a very real scenario at your kick-ass party, especially during the second half of the beer cooler. I have to assume these guys are majorly into the Bad Bunny halftime show, because no one will be this into the game.

Either way, make sure you have enough inflatable football ring toss hats for everyone on the couch this year. Your party depends on it. Katy Perry is getting ready to launch, so get your orders in soon, and have a great Super Bowl Sunday, everybody!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Now we need to hear from our Just a Smidge all-stars – the paid subscribers – about the importance of ring toss…