Call it the Civil War of football or, as cheesy headline writers prefer, the HarBowl. Either way, the upcoming Super Bowl will be a dramatic one since the two teams are coached by two brothers. An unlikely outcome of the conference championships on Sunday night means that John Harbaugh, head coach for the Baltimore Ravens, will face his little brother Jim Harbough, head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, in New Orleans on February 3 for Super Bowl LXVII. This is the first brother versus brother matchup in Super Bowl history.

This is not, however, the first time that the Harbaugh brothers have faced off in the NFL. On Thanksgiving Night in 2011, John Harbaugh led his Ravens to a 16-6 victory over Jim Harbaugh's 49ers. This year, though, the junior Harbaugh brother is the favorite to win, and the senior Harbaugh brother is sick of talking about how crazy it is that he has to play against his brother. "Let's cut that out right now," Harbaugh said after his team beat the New England Patriots on Sunday night. "We did that last year. It got old last year, did it not?"

Let's all be honest. Defending your honor against your younger brother never gets old as the premise for a good old-fashioned dramatic adventure. As child actor Devon Sawa put it, "This year's Super Bowl is based loosely on the hit movie Little Giants." And Sawa can draw that conclusion confidently, since he was the star of Little Giants. 

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Adam Clark Estes