The Patriots have already played in more Super Bowls (nine) than any other team and will tie the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most victories (six) if they win this year’s championship on Feb. 4. They’re heavy favorites over the Philadelphia Eagles, who graduated to the big game by trouncing the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.

Please forgive the mixed bestial metaphor, but these Eagles aren’t cuddly underdogs. They have fans so famously obnoxious that after Sunday’s rout, some of them threw beer cans at a Vikings team bus as it pulled away from the stadium. Sore winning: I wonder which of our amazing leaders taught them that.

Football, like Trumpism, likes to believe that it’s about working-class folks in the heartland. But this year’s Super Bowl, like the Trump administration, bows to the Acela corridor. It nearly brought together two teams from underexposed cities, Jacksonville and Minneapolis. Instead it brings together two teams from celebrated theaters of history in the Northeast. So much for the little guy.

It’s a downer most of all because the N.F.L. itself is in such a funk. I say that reluctantly. For my money, pro football remains the most exciting of the four major American sports. It showcases the most extraordinary athleticism.

That is, when the athletes aren’t sidelined. Injuries are so pervasive that dozens of stars don’t participate for long stretches of the season — or for any of it. The Patriots’ wide receiver Julian Edelman went down in August and never came back. The Eagles’ starting quarterback, Carson Wentz, went down in early December and won’t appear in the Super Bowl.

It’s weirdly fitting that some of the loudest football buzz this season focused on an oft-injured former player, the quarterback Tony Romo, and his accomplishments off the field. Romo retired from the Dallas Cowboys, went to work as a football announcer and developed a rapt following for his oracular deconstruction of games. By quitting football, he didn’t just spare his endoskeleton. He found his destiny.

But even his gifted gab couldn’t prevent the sport from continuing to lose television viewers. The sizes of audiences for Thursday night, Sunday night and Monday night games shrank again this season.

The Super Bowl will still be a ratings bonanza. It always is. But beneath all the braggadocio and hoopla, there will be little real uplift and nothing new. It’s a tic of my trade to say so, but I spy a metaphor there.