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Look closely. Closer. Yeah, that’s me. Courtesy of the great John Tlumacki.

With the postseason now upon us, this feels timely: I’ve reported from nine Super Bowls in my life. (Am I going to get to a 10th next month? We’ll see.) Here are nine stories — some journalism-based, some not — about what it was like to cover each one:

Super Bowl XXXVI: I stayed in Baton Rouge with the friend of a friend, and my fiancé (now my wife) donated her frequent flier miles to get me from Boston to Louisiana and back again. The thinking? I might not have the chance to do this ever again. Ho ho ho. After the end of the game and my stories were filed, that’s when I started a tradition of grabbing a beer from the workroom and enjoying it on the field. It’s something I’ve tried to do with different colleagues over the years every Super Bowl when things were complete. I also grabbed some confetti. Anyway, I drove the hour-plus back to Baton Rouge from New Orleans at about 2 a.m. I remember thinking that if something happened — car trouble, whatever — I’d be in deep doo-doo. Broken down by the side of the road on a Louisiana highway is no way to die. But I made it.

Super Bowl XXXVIII: Stayed in Houston with two other reporters at a sketchy Holiday Inn. Went to the Super Bowl party that week, which was held in the Houston Aquarium. (Without irony, they served sushi. In an aquarium.) Another great Super Bowl, one where I learned that I had to have multiple stories ready to go on deadline, because no matter what you think of the Patriots, they always make in interesting in the end. Had a discount flight back to Boston the following Tuesday evening. It was strange being in the host city for the Super Bowl after everyone else had gone home. I watched the celebration going on in Boston in a hotel room in Houston.

Super Bowl XXXIX: I was sick. Really sick. Had a case of the flu the week before the game, and I thought I had shaken it off, but it got worse when I got to Jacksonville. (What didn’t help things was the fact that my flight into Tallahassee was delayed, and I landed at about 2 a.m. The only rental car place that was open was Dollar, and I got one of their last cars, and drove the two-plus hours to Jacksonville. Got in at about 5 a.m. To this day, Dollar remains my default rental car option.) I had a media hotel room, so I could ride the shuttle back and forth, but I got really sick on Saturday. I remember drinking Gatorade and chugging DayQuil, and being generally miserable the night of the game. Walking into the stadium, I heard a band outside playing “Carry On My Wayward Son” and thinking, Man, that’s a really good Kansas cover band. Ten seconds later, the song ends, and I hear the lead singer say, “Thank you very much! We are Kansas!”

Super Bowl LII: The desert was really nice, and this was the first Super Bowl where I was there most of the week. Sold a ton of books that week — turns out when you write a book about the Patriots being awesome and they go 18-0 out of the gate, a lot of people will buy it. Who knew? One of my Super Bowl routines was to go from the press box to the media workroom at the start of the fourth quarter. (It can be a dicey proposition waiting for the elevator to get to the postgame interview area.) As it became apparent the Giants were going to beat the Patriots, multiple New York radio guys were cheering in the media workroom. Afterward, when we got to the interview area, a colleague looked at me, waited a beat and said, “Well, you sold a lot of books, right?”

Super Bowl XLVI: Indy is a really underrated Super Bowl city. Good food, decent weather for early February, and super hospitable. The media party was at the Indy 500 track. I remain convinced that if Rob Gronkowski was fully healthy for the game, they would have beaten the Giants. After the game, I was standing at Wes Welker’s podium. Felt absolutely gutted for the guy. Had red eyes, and was answering everything with one or two sentences. Awful. But he talked — I give him lot of credit for that.

Super Bowl XLIX: This was still bananas. I remember sitting in the auxiliary — outside — press box, and yelling in surprise at a colleague after Malcolm Butler picked off Russell Wilson. Anyway, you know how I said before that you always had to keep two or three stories going when it comes to a Super Bowl finish involving the Patriots? On my old laptop, I had two different game stories set to go when the clock hit zero. Went with the winner. BTW, that stadium? I always thought it had a faint smell of cinnamon. And the field had some of the squishiest turf I’ve ever stepped on. We stayed up all night writing, and the next morning, we went to the Super Bowl MVP press conference on no sleep. When I covered the team, I liked to sit relatively close to the front so guys could recognize you. At Brady’s presser, I think I was the only recognizable face in the front row. He looked right at me for the first question. Showing up every day has its perks. That was one instance where it paid off.

(Oh, and another thing: I rode the media duckboat in the parade a few days later–see above for visual evidence. To be honest, as a media member, I prefer to stay in the background, but it was the only way we’d get player access that day. You gotta do what you gotta do.)

Super Bowl LI: Another crazy one. My favorite behind-the-scenes tidbit from this one was probably the fact that my literary agent (my dude Alec Shane) and I had been going back and forth all season long about the fact that there was probably a book with this team. After the game ended, me and my colleagues spent the night writing and writing and writing. He texted me at some point in the early morning hours saying, “Yeah, OK. There’s a book there.” I started writing the outline on the way home, he sold it quickly to St. Martin’s Press, and it was on the bookshelves six months later. I’ll always have a soft spot for my first book, but “Drive For Five” might ultimately be my favorite.

Still available everywhere!

Super Bowl LII: Never been that cold in my life. All week. It was a dry, angry cold, which made it almost painful to try and endure. The kind that gets in your bones and you can’t shake for days. I remember our hotel was right across the parking lot from the Mall of America, where the media center was. The first day, I looked out my window, and it looked like maybe a five-minute walk. I will make this. I am hale and hearty and a New Englander who eats 20-degree temperatures for breakfast. I got about two minutes in, muttered “F*ck this,” and rode the shuttle the rest of the week. The Patriots lost, but I remember the looks on the faces of the Philly fans. So happy. That’s what it must have been like to have covered the Cardinals in the 2004 World Series.

Super Bowl LIII: Stayed at a house in the Atlanta suburbs all week. Ate Chick-Fil-A or Publix subs almost every day when I wasn’t scrounging food in the media center. I regret nothing. Rode the subway back and forth, and had a blast. Great people in Atlanta. On Saturday, I walked through the campus at Georgia Tech—saw the baseball field and a “GRONK DRINKS FOR FREE” sign in front of a fraternity. After the Patriots’ won, I congratulated Cordarrelle Patterson, one of my favorite quotes that year, in the locker room after the game. “Couldn’t have done it without you, man” he replied. OK. Not sure if that’ll be my last Super Bowl, but if it was, I like to think I was present for the football version of Michael Jordan beating Bryon Russell in Game 6 — that 29-yarder from Brady to Gronkowski in the fourth quarter was the exclamation point on the dynasty, as far as I’m concerned.

• New week, new episode of “The Patriots Report.” Hogan and I had a few thoughts on the regular-season finale with the Dolphins, but we mainly focused on the wild-card showdown with the Chargers. How important is the New England ground game? Can the Patriots get pressure on Justin Herbert? And what’s the line on the contest? We’ve got it all, right here.

• After an impressive finish to the regular season, Hogan says Josh McDaniels will have even more in his bag for the postseason.

• I asked Hogan to play devil’s advocate and give me a path to victory for the Chargers. He had a quick answer.

• Here’s the complete podcast on YouTube. By the looks of the comment section, a lot of LA fans stumbled onto this week’s show.

• Anyway, I also spent some quality time with the fellas from “Toucher & Hardy” Tuesday morning sharing my thoughts on Patriots-Chargers.

“I remember a lot of variety shows.”

• I also talked with “Mannix & Mannix” on Portland’s 96.3 The Big Jab on Wednesday, and spent some time chatting with my old friend Christian Arcand on WEEI Friday night. And finally, I previewed the game with WWLP-TV in Springfield.

• This was a really enjoyable story: I connected with kicker Andy Borregales a few times over the span of a month, and got a greater understanding of his rookie year, and where he stands mentally at the start of his first NFL postseason. Fun process.

• Khyiris Tonga won’t play Sunday night, but Jared Wilson will be playing, and it sounds like Harold Landry is awfully close to returning to action.

• This one shows the benefit of listening, as well as a good memory. Last year, I remember Drake Maye talking about how he used to use Derwin James when he played “Madden” as a kid. Now, Maye’s first career NFL start will largely be defined by how he handles James and all he offers as a defensive standout.

• Robert Spillane, a dude so intense he makes coffee nervous, is amped up to return to the field for the start of the postseason.

• Love doing the mailbag. This week’s big question: Does the 2025 team have the greatest chemistry in team history? (There’s also a question about Will Campbell’s beer-chugging skills, if you’re into that sort of thing.)

• Speaking of Campbell, the big rookie — and Milton Williams — returned to the lineup for Sunday’s regular-season finale. How did they look? And did Williams deliver one of the quotes of the year when he talked about how frustrating it was sitting home and watching games? “Sitting on the couch is just garbage. I ain’t gonna lie. Just being back out there with my guys, man, it’s the best.”

• Not sure what lies ahead for this team, at least right now. If they win Sunday night, the playoff cycle gets cranked up to an even more frantic pace, and we’ll start with the divisional round previews. If they lose, they’ll spend Monday cleaning out their lockers, we’ll get one more session with the coach and players that same day, and that’ll be it for regularly-scheduled media availability. How many days until the combine?

Me, Marty B., and a few other people, a few days before Super Bowl LI. I am tired.

Nine years ago this week, at the start of New England’s playoff run, I was part of a group of reporters who asked tight end Martellus Bennett about the passion he’s felt from Patriots fans that season, and why he thought that feeling was sustained after multiple playoff runs over the last dozen-plus years: “I mean, shit, I don’t know. I like cake a lot, and every time I get a new slice, I’m just as happy. I don’t know.”

Every sportswriter should be lucky enough to have a quote machine like Martellus Bennett come into their lives at least once.

Until next time.

I call this one '“Playoff Vrabel.”