Pens scribble on reporters’ pads. Motor-driven cameras click. Battery-operated recorders spin tape. Microphones block any view of the athlete’s face.

Questions are fired one after another.

What are the words in “The Three Amigos” video? If you were a tree, what kind would you be? Do you like pepporoni on your pizza? What do you think of the stock market plummeting? Is there life after death?

Perhaps a question about the supposedly scheduled Sunday showdown between the Denver Broncos and Washington Redskins is asked. Maybe not.

Hype.

You don’t hear the word more than during Super Bowl Week (with the possible exception of boxing’s monthly Fight of the Century). The pace is so hectic, even more than during the big game, that the players need an extra week to prepare for the media blitz.

Journalists swarm to the appointed city to do their jobs, though it’s hard to think of covering the Super Bowl as work except for the year it was held in Motown. Warm weather sites are chosen so camera lenses don’t fog up. Pens don’t always work in cold weather either.

Looking up “hype” in Webster’s lexicon, we see the words “deception” and “put-on.” That has been the case for many of these games catalogued by Roman numbers. The media attempt to form rivalries and angles to add spice to the proceedings. But the game usually doesn’t live up to expectations and leaves a bad taste after a rout or a snore-inducer.

So far, this Super Hype Week has been on the non-serrated edge of the knife. There has been nothing earthshattering since the 5.3-Richter-scale-measured earthquake Monday morning that kicked off the festivities.

There has not been a quarterback mooning a helicopter, although Dexter Manley’s big bald head resembles a derrier (or at least a grapefruit) from a distance.

The players have been shuttled around from interviews to picture-taking to meals to more interviews and, yes, even practice when time permits.

The plight of the Super Bowl participant resembles the college student at times. Ever have to study for a test at the end of the week but social engagements keep you tied up and unable to concentrate on your main task for being here?

Some coaches try to control this situation by keeping their players under wraps at all times, others let their troops roam free. Both theories have been credited as the reason for success on Super Sunday, and blamed for failure. Winners are always right. Losers wrong.

No one is labeling Denver-Washington as a classic matchup. This is no Leonard-Hagler.

It will not be the game of the year and everyone knows it. San Francisco and Chicago would have to be in town to warrant that. But alas, both are in the same conference and Minnesota and Washington didn’t follow the script to let the Bears and 49ers even meet in the playoffs.

So this could be the first time in four years an AFC team carries home the Vince Lombardi trophy. Denver QB John Elway is the reason for the 3uu-point line, and rightly so.

Tuley’s tout: Broncos in the fourth with Elway delivering the knockout blow.

Bet on it.