SUPER BOWL XL

SUPER BOWL XL

It's been a forgettable NFL season for me, about the only good thing to come out of it is a brand new Super Bowl matchup. So I can cross Seattle-Pittsburgh off my list (yes, there is a list...actually a spreadsheet) and hope that next year the Jets are the ones involved in another new Super Bowl matchup. (For those of you unfamiliar with my obsession, I want every NFL team to face every other NFL team, in their respective conferences, in the Super Bowl. Same goes for the World Series.)

I know there's a lot for me to weigh in on, what with the Jets' coaching debacles...I mean, changes...but I just want to put this season behind me for a bit. So I'm here to make a Super Bowl prediction, and then move onto johnnymets.blogspot.com for a while.

Back at the beginning of the post-season, I trashed Shaun Alexander as an MVP and said he'd probably cost his team a playoff game due to a fumble. I guess that hasn't happened, but he did fumble against Washington when he got knocked out...it just didn't cost the team the game (but shouldn't an MVP being knocked out of a playoff game cost your team the game...maybe he's not so V. Just a thought.)

That said, hopefully Alexander will NOT fumble and cost his team this game, because I am picking the Seattle Seahawks to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XL. It's been a long road for the Steelers. I know they have a lot of emotion going into this game, what with Jerome Bettis and all, and there are going to be a lot of Steelers fans in Detroit. I know that. I didn't think the Steelers would be able to win in Indy...and then I did not think they'd be able to win in Denver. But the road's gotta catch up to them eventually. This is where it will.

Seattle is on the road too, which isn't the greatest thing. But this is a different Seattle team than the one that stunk on the road last year. Granted they weren't great away from Qwest this year, but they're a very good team. I can't believe Seattle is actually the underdog. I would take Seattle getting the points in this one easy.

I think the quarterbacks in this game are pretty evenly matched - but the edge might actually go to Pittsburgh because Ben Roethlisberger has a better set of receivers, I think, than Matt Hasselbeck. I think Seattle's got a better running game (Bettis isn't a threat until the Steelers are inside the 20), and I think people are going to be surprised by how well the Seattle defense plays tomorrow night.

I'm going with Seattle, 27-21.

I'm rooting, in a player pool that I'm in, for Jerome Bettis to score two more touchdowns than Shaun Alexander. I also need neither of the quarterbacks to throw a touchdown. I'm not sure how my pick will happen, with me still winning the pool...so I have a couple of different rooting interests in this game. I can root for the kickers to have good games. 9 field goals for the Seahawks, 3 touchdowns for Bettis.

I find it funny (or pathetic) that the Steelers made it to the Super Bowl this year as a 6 seed when, at the beginning of the year, filled with naive hope, I wrote that the Jets would need to win the division, because it's near impossible for a team to make the Super Bowl without playing a post-season home game (or even without home field advantage throughout). This was after the Jets lost in Pittsburgh, after winning in San Diego in last year's playoffs. So the Steelers have accomplished a lot already, just by getting to the big game. But I think, sad for them, it's all over tomorrow night. Let the record show that I think, at this point, I am rooting for the Steelers to win. But I'm picking the Seahawks to beat them. See you in baseball season.