LIII:It’s a big day in football. The oldest quarterback to start a Super Bowl is up against the youngest, the oldest coach against the youngest, and it’s Tony Romo’s first appearance as a Super Bowl analyst. 

  In just two years in the broadcast booth, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback has shown an uncanny ability to predict what’s going to happen on the field. He’ll say, “They’re going to pass to this guy,” and they do. His partner Jim Nance calls him “Romostradamus.” The Wall Street Journal looked at hundreds of hours of tape and found that he’s right 68 percent of the time.

  Romo is not clairvoyant, he just knows the game so well he can see what’s coming. He’ll bring sharp analysis to the game. 

  What’s also coming today is a clash between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams. Patriots coach Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady have appeared in nine bowls together, winning five of them. They faltered a bit this season, but here they are. At age 41 Brady is still at the top of his game.

  The Rams are widely believed to have arrived in the Super Bowl through the grace of a monumentally bad call in their last playoff game. Quarterback Jared Goff is only 24 and was in grade school when Brady won his first Super Bowl. The Rams are really good, though. Goff, like Brady, is great in the clutch when it looks like he’s about to lose. But Brady has done a lot more of it than he has.

  The kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 eastern time in Atlanta. Gladys Knight will be belting out the National Anthem

Memory Lapse: Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam now says he was not either of the pair of young men featured on his medical school yearbook page, one of whom was wearing blackface and the other dressed in Klan robes. 

 “It was definitely not me,” the Democrat told reporters at a news conference in the governor’s mansion. “I can tell by looking at it.” You’d think he could also tell by remembering whether he ever dressed in blackface or the hooded robe of the Ku Klux Klan. How close would anyone have to look to figure out whether they ever appeared in a picture like that?

  Northam originally appeared to admit that he wasone of the people in the photo, although he didn’t say which. He said, “I look back now and regret that I did not understand the harmful legacy of an action like that.”

  The governor did admit that on another occasion in 1984 when he was an Army officer he went to a party as Michael Jackson in shoe-polish blackface. Figuratively speaking, he’s still having trouble removing it.

  The 59-year-old Northam asked for forgiveness, although a small army of people in his own party have said he should resign. Our money says he will sometime in the coming week.

Universal Soldiers:A federal judge in Seattle ordered the Defense Department to stop scrutinizing naturalized citizens who serve in the Army under a program to attract immigrants with specialized skills.

   US District Judge Thomas Zilly ruledthis week that the Pentagon may not conduct “continuous monitoring” and security checks every two years when they don’t do the same with native-born American soldiers.

  The plaintiffs are 17 naturalized citizens who enlisted through the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program. 

  Now there’s a name created by the Army.

Oil Republic:Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets yesterday to call for the ouster of President Nicolás Maduro. Although Maduro is propped up by the military, a top air force general also defected to the opposition yesterday. 

 Juan Guaidó, a 35-year-old industrial engineer  who heads the opposition-controlled National Assembly, claims to be the legitimate leader of the country. He has the support of  the United States and a bunch of other countries since he declared himself the interim president.

State of the Golf Game:As he prepares to deliver his State of the Union message on Tuesday, President Trump played golf yesterday with professionals Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, ending his longest stretch as President without a round at one of his courses. 

 After getting beaten by Nancy Pelosi in the 35-day government shutdown, facing a tightening investigation by the Special Counsel, and an embarrassing clash with his intelligence chiefs, Trump needs to deliver a speech to establish himself as a leader.  Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey and, Toluse Olorunnipa write in The Washington Post that,  “The challenges mount at a moment when Trump is as unencumbered and isolated as ever. Inside the White House, aides describe a chaotic, freewheeling atmosphere reminiscent of the early weeks of Trump’s presidency.”

  When the going gets tough, the President goes golfing. He has spent more than 150 days at his golf courses since becoming president, playing a lot more than predecessors he mocked for golfing too much. His staff used to worry that he spent too much time on the greens, then they realized that’s where he can do the least harm.

-30-