At Jáma Saturday night, when Indianapolis scored the first touchdown in the 12-team elimination battle for a Super Bowl berth, there was little reaction. Moments later, Kansas City's Ty Law intercepted a pass and scampered toward the goal line. Near the end of his runback, someone glanced up and blurted, "What the hell?"

Now, before you jump to the obvious conclusion — a bunch of clueless Yanks — consider this: Football is one of the most complex sports. Don't believe it? Try figuring out assignments when the offense runs R motion out of a trips right but the line fires into a zone scheme at the snap.

On the other hand, the sport lends itself to mindless consumption. You can watch all the collisions and action without any knowledge of the game's intricacies. That's why for many people, playoff games are just an excuse for a social gathering or two.

Thus Jáma seemed more like a house party, with impromptu conversations taking precedence over football, even as all eyes keep a relatively constant watch on the screen.

"This has been a weird game."

"Another first down."

"You're not supposed to dip bread into grease"— a reference, and not a favorable one, to Czech dumplings and goulash.

At one point this past weekend, I heard a stunning new conspiracy theory: It was no accident that the first team to win the Super Bowl after 9/11 was the Patriots. Coincidence? Or another demonstration of the über-powers of Karl Rove?

Then an argument broke out about the cheesy rock 'n' roll iconization painted on Jáma's wall. The group could pick out Jagger, Dylan, The Boss, Jerry Garcia ... but who was the person at the top? Janis Joplin? David Lee Roth? In the swelling tide of inebriation, one fan managed to pull out his PDA and find an Internet photo of Janis. Yep, that was her, looking very much like the frontman for Van Halen.

A more attentive crowd gathered Sunday night at Zlatá Hvězda. The main room filled early, with driblets of fans spilling into the lesser rooms. This was definitely not the pretty elite. In fact, it looked like half of New Jersey (scraggly hair, distressed clothes, sweatpants) showed up — pretty dismal, but they were into the games.

When a shot of CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves appeared onscreen, a young American female voice cracked to life: "There's George Bush!" Which brought the question to mind: Is there any type more gleefully unaware than young American women? Only young British males (and U.S. presidents) come close. But at least the Brits disguise their cognitive faults with a raucous sense of humor. Young American women happily shout their ignorance to the world.

At the table next to me, two filmmakers (every expat not working for Radio Free Europe seems to be a filmmaker or techie) alternately praised the Giants' Tiki Barber and their just-wrapped movie. The film — The Wrong Mr. Johnson, if I remember correctly — is either a romantic comedy or another of those Prague-based flicks featuring "romance" almost exclusively. I was curious to learn more, but they soon exited to dispose of a hand-rolled number tapered at both ends.

So that's playoff football. If it's possible to know American culture through the sport, what stands out most is the willingness of football fans to speak to just about anyone in a room. So what if they offer shallow assessments or deep, in-the-know sports talk, kick back in Hugo Boss or worn sweats, sip cocktails or smoke substances? And so what if they can't even identify their own elected mouthpiece?

At home or abroad, television crams football into the American consciousness. It's a sport perfectly suited for a media-savvy, target-marketed, mass-consumption, Ritalin-dazed world.