Published Feb 4, 2006
Like many Americans, I suffer from repetitive stress injuries, and it is only because of these that I’m not today a professional football coach or, with my stature, safety. However, also like many Americans, I certainly know as much about football as any coach or safety (although perhaps not as much as an offensive lineman), and therefore I plan to hold forth on exactly whom I pick to win tomorrow’s big game.
Were you to prick me, I would bleed either blue and orange or purple and black, depending, I guess, on where exactly you jab your sharp item into my skin (outside a nightclub in Atlanta, I’m quite confident that I would bleed purple and black). I divide my football allegiance between the Denver Broncos, who served as a replacement home team for me after I discovered football while in Colorado and then my hometown Colts committed perhaps the most odious, traitorous act in all of recorded history and moved to Indianapolis; and the Baltimore Ravens, who unexpectedly popped up in my hometown about fifteen years later. How can I pick between two home teams? No, I love them both. Sadly, this year neither is in the big game, the Ravens having tanked it from early on and the Broncos having suffered a spectacular, QB-led meltdown that caused me to lay in the middle of the floor, whimpering, for a good 30 minutes after the game.
So who should I root for? The Steelers, who dismantled my Broncs? The Seahawks, from the oh-so-strange NFC, but who didn’t victimize my favorites on their way to the top? It’s a hard decision, but, after a lot of thought, I’ve made a decision. I’m pulling for the Steelers.
A big part of it is just the play style of the team. It is my avowed desire to some day own an NFL team (note to self: must become much richer), and, when I own a team, it will be a three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust, fearsome-defense type of team. I don’t believe in that newfangled forward pass, and I definitely don’t believe in having your entire uniform be one color. The team that matches that description is, of course, the Steelers. Those Seahawks, with their ladylike passing offense, are a hollow mockery of what a football team should be. Well, except for Joe Jurivicius, who brought me a good number of points in fantasy ball this year. Thanks, Joe.
And it helps that the Steelers are from a big, old, Eastern, urban, blue-collar, heavy-industry town, just like my hometown Baltimore. How can I not like a team from a place like that? (Although, if Messrs. Mason and Dixon just hadn’t drawn their line too far south, Philly would be in Maryland, and then it’d be obvious who I’d root for.)
Plus, I think the steelers will win. Two rushing TDs for Jerome Bettis, one passing for Smilin’ Hines Ward, one passing for Heath Miller, and a field goal will make up their winning score of 31. Meanwhile, the patient running style of the Seahawks’ Shaun Alexander will be rewarded with a lot of tackles for a loss by the ultra-fast Pittsburgh linebacker corps, and the two touchdowns and three field goals produced by their limp-wristed passing “offense” will leave Seattle with a measly 23 points at the end of the day.
So that’s it. Tune in tomorrow to see me proven horribly, tragically wrong. Go Steelers!
It would be hard for me to imagine a matchup with less interest for me, but here’s my one take… When both teams won their conference championship games, the SB was being billed as 2 relative equal cinderellas. But over the past 2 weeks, the press (and sentiment) has been increasingly focused on Pittsburgh. I think all the fawning over Joey Porter and Troy Polamalu is going to provide tremendous motivation for Lofa Tatupu and, especially, Shaun Alexander who still isn’t getting the press he deserves. Seattle wins, 24-20.
I predict a Steelers win, 21-10.
But then, I have the advantage of having read the results before making my prediction.
Either way would’ve been fine. Xta loves Pittsburgh, and I’m very fond of Seattle. (In both cases referring to the city, not to any of its sports teams. But, eh, if the team of a city I like wins something, that’s fine by me.)