Super Bowl XLIX Preview

Who will win this battle of football titans*?
*Obviously I don't mean the Tennessee Titans, they suck. 

I don't want to toot my own horn* about correctly predicting this Super Bowl five months ago so let's just get straight to talking about this fascinating game.

*Actually, I do. I'm 8-2 against the spread (Naturally, I haven't been betting), & straight up, in these playoffs. Only 6 of 64 ESPN experts correctly predicted this Super Bowl at the start of the year. In seven years of making preseason predictions I've got at least one Super Bowl team right in all but one year. I've now nailed 8 of the 14 teams during that span. King Kong ain't got s*** on me!
 
I know a lot of people aren't thrilled this game is between the Seahawks & the Patriots, the two most hated teams in the league, give or take the Cowboys & Steelers, but who cares what the haters think. The further this season went on the more apparent it became that this was the most interesting potential matchup. Sure, Denver fans would've loved a rematch, until it ended in another double digit loss. It was always a matter of time before the Colts got blasted by a better team, better for it not to be in the big game. Dallas... F@#$ that. Green Bay would've been fun though. Rodgers vs. Brady, a rematch of one of the few marquee matchups of the regular season that lived up to the hype, no one would've objected to that. This is even better though. Pete Carroll's shot at revenge on the team & owner that fired him. Tom Brady versus his successor in the clutch category, Russell Wilson (Who's 10-0 against Super Bowl winning quarterbacks, though that has a lot to do with the defense). The two best cornerbacks in the league demonstrating just how good they are. The Seahawks can become the first repeat champions since the Patriots. Belichick & Brady* can become only the second coach/QB combo to win four Super Bowls (Chuck Noll & Terry Bradshaw were the first). Brady gets a shot at beating the team that massacred his rival the year before, & in doing so cement himself as the best quarterback of his generation. They're also just the two best teams in football.** That's a lot of great storylines, & it's going to be awesome getting to see which ones play out.

*Listen, if you want to always see an asterisk next to those two names because of spygate & deflategate go ahead. You're being either extremely stupid, or biased if you do, because neither of those was A. exclusive to the Patriots or B. that big a deal, but go ahead & let your Patriot hate flow.

**Certainly some Packers fans will take exception to that claim what with Rodgers being hurt & Seattle needing a miracle comeback to win on their home turf. I'd counter that Russell Wilson quite possibly played most of that game with a concussion & the Seahawks turned the ball over 5 times & the Packers still couldn't beat them. You don't get better opportunities than that & if you can't capitalize you're simply not good enough –– at least not with your coach asleep at the wheel.

2014 NFL Preview

Can Seattle become the first team to repeat in 10 years?

I love college football. It's fantastic, & this year there's even a playoff! With that said the highlight of my fall weekends is the Christian, not the Jewish*, Sabbath. In the NFL you actually know who all of the players are. Unless you're a Raiders fan, every season you can talk yourself into believing your team is going to make the playoffs &, after the recent playoff runs of the Giants, Cardinals, & Ravens, that means they've got a chance to win it all! Does it help that my team, the Giants, have won 2 of the last 7 Super Bowls while the Arizona Wildcats have never made a Rose Bowl? Absolutely! But that's exactly my point: The NFL is what people want to believe America is like –– a place where if you plan right & work hard you can lift yourself from the bottom to the top of society –– while college football is what America really is –– a place with a giant divide of haves & have nots where the occasional surprise success story provides the illusion of hope. That's why I prefer the NFL, even with moral questionability of the entire enterprise, so I'm super excited for another season of madness that will surely make many of my following picks look shockingly foolish.**

*If we're being totally honest Judaism has it right. Christianity sold out the Sabbath, & a bunch of other things, for converts.

**But not all of them! Unlike any of ESPN's 36 experts last season I correctly predicted the Panthers to get the 2 seed in the NFC, in addition to predicting the Chiefs to make the playoffs, the Falcons to fall off (though not that drastically), & the Seahawks to win the Super Bowl. Does it matter than I also had the Giants & Bucs in the playoffs? Yeah... I know it does.