Super Bowl 2018 pregame: Live updates and highlights all day long

Patriots Defensive tackle Alan Branch was spotted at a local Panda Express ahead of kickoff. He’s one of several inactives not playing today.

“When you’re not playing in Super Bowl 52 after playing the whole season with the New England Patriots, just go eat some Panda Express. “

Justin Timberlake is this year’s performer for the halftime show, but Janet Jackson fans have dubbed today #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay.

Carson Wentz voiced some words of encouragement for Nick Foles before the game.

It’s here. The most important sporting event of the season. Don’t forget about the Kitten Bowl either or this blog written by an actual kitten.

Play of the year candidate right here:

“The Puppy Bowl gave us one of the most awe-inspiring and beautiful moments on Super Bowl Sunday when a chicken played “America the Beautiful.”

During a Super Bowl preview show, Randy Moss got emotional when talking about his induction into the Hall of Fame.

After much speculation and internet backlash, this year’s halftime show will not feature a hologram of Prince. Sheila E. said as much on Twitter.

Super Bowl Sunday isn’t just about some football game. It’s also about cramming as much non-essential fluff into an ever-expanding pregame universe.

The Super Bowl pregame show is a time-honored tradition that takes something simple, like football, and then inflates it with so many human interest stories and tangential exercises in entertainment. The end result is the bloated corpse of the two-hour celebrity shmozz-fests that infect each week of the regular season, washing up just in time for a showdown between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots.

Sunday’s pregame show will cover SIX AND A HALF hours (an even 10, if you’re following on your laptop or phones) of NFL coverage, blending actual football information with live music performances, Winter Olympic previews, and, uh, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Broadway star (and Hamilton standout) Leslie Odom Jr. will perform “America the Beautiful,” carving a patriotic path for Pink to follow when she sings the national anthem before kickoff.

The music won’t be limited to songs about our nation. The NFL Tailgate Party, which will be broadcast intermittently throughout NBC’s pregame coverage, will feature a handful of legendary artists, including Sting, Darius Rucker, and Mr. Boombastic himself, Shaggy. The pregame programming will also feature the debut of Peyton Manning’s latest commercial, in which he embraces his new role as — sigh — “vacation quarterback.”

Somewhere in between this array of decidedly non-football content will be some analysis of Sunday’s game, which pits the AFC’s top seed against the NFC No. 1. The Patriots battled back from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to erase the Jaguars’ upset bid in Foxborough, pushing Tom Brady and Bill Belichick to their eighth Super Bowl together. The Eagles were underdogs in each of their playoff wins after losing starting quarterback (and MVP candidate) Carson Wentz late in the regular season, but Nick Foles has exceeded expectations to put Philadelphia on the precipice of its first Super Bowl win.

We’ll have all the vital coverage of NBC’s vital coverage right here, so follow along with us as we anxiously pace back and forth before Super Bowl 52 officially gets underway.

When: Sunday, Feb. 4, noon - 6:30 p.m. ET

TV: NBC

Where: Minneapolis, Minn.

Commentators: Mike Tirico, Bob Costas, Liam McHugh, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Online: NFL on NBC, FuboTV