Super Bowl

[drogulus]

    Let's have some Super Bowl talk. We can have predictions, and we should. I'll defer for now.

    Who will win? Do you have a fan interest? I want to know!

[drogulus]

     My Pittsburgh Steeler problem started with a QB that is shaped like a trash can. How he can get away with that is beyond me.

[Mirror Image]

Pittsburgh got their clocks cleaned by New England. I really hope Atlanta can beat New England as I believe Atlanta truly deserves this win as it's been forever since they've even been to the Super Bowl.

[snyprrr]

Superb Owl


fellow traveler?


nod nod
wink wink

17 to 34

[Gurn Blanston]

Atlanta has been hot as a pistol for the last couple of months. They have had the offense all year, and now their defense has emerged too. As good as Brady is, I have noticed in the past that when he gets really pressured and has to get out of the pocket he is much less effective. I think Atlanta knows that too. I pick Atlanta by a field goal.

[mc ukrneal]

Don't care, though I do like it when a team that has never won it actually goes ahead and wins it. But I would also love it if the Pats won and Brady was MVP so that they could rub it in to Goodell. Can't stand that guy, and he would be fired if doing a good job were more important than being a lackey for the owners. But he seems to play that game very well.

[drogulus]

     I'm a Pats fan. The intensity of my fandom varies according to whether a team I root for raises issues that appeal to me. I get bored with teams that are good because they are stuffed with good players. I loved the film Moneyball because it illustrated some of what is important, like why a team will win when "best system" is matched against "best players". What I think of as my teams aren't Boston teams, though I know more about them and I am a fan in the usual sense, too.

     My teams include the '77 Portland Trailblazers (Halberstam, The Breaks of the Game) and the New England Patriots (Halberstam and other authors have written about them). When Bill Walton came from San Diego to Boston in '86 I had one of those Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws moments "heh, they're all going to die". For a brief time a team had both the system advantage and a best player advantage.

     Belichick shows what a system advantage can mean. The Pats rarely have enough best players. Many would look ordinary in a different setting, though not Lawyer Milloy, I really didn't want Bill to dump him over money, but that's what makes me a fan, besides not knowing anything about football.

     I'll go ahead and pick Atlanta. The edge a system can produce is a little too narrow going against this team. In the Belichick/Brady era the Pats have lost 3 out of 7 Super Bowls they played. They failed to reach the Super Bowl more times than they did.