CollegeKingRex
CTG Regular
The Super Bowl involves one team who doesn’t belong and another team who has possibly skirted the rules to get there once again. Needless to say, I won’t be too excited to watch it. But since there is nothing else on, I’ll watch it when there are actual plays being run. Forget the commercials and halftime show; I don’t even mind if I get the Spanish feed and they don’t show any of that. I also volunteered to cook green beans and potato wedges at my buddy’s house while another one grills the steaks. It will be the first time in many years where I don’t have a sweat in the game and am not out after halftime in a neighborhood establishment. I might be sweating some skirt after the game, as traditionally Super Bowl Sunday is a big party night down here, but I’m not going out of my way to look for it.
WHY NEW ENGLAND CAN WIN:
Super Bowl XLIX is a fun matchup between the top seeds in the AFC and NFC. That is as simple as it can be put, and the matchup (in addition to all of the other soap-opera-type happenings in the NFL the last few months) could well draw a record television audience.
While Seattle had to pull off a miraculous comeback to dump Green Bay in overtime in the NFC Championship, the Patriots blasted Indianapolis 45-7 in the AFC title game.
This battle pits teams that have each caused the league to change the rules in the last few years. The Pats were a clutching and grabbing team; the Seahawks play rough and tough with receivers and were the driving force behind the league calling more pass interference and illegal contact penalties this season.
I will not say anything about the deflated footballs controversy surrounding the Patriots since the AFC Championship domination of the Colts, other than that it might have played a small distraction in the New England preparation for this game. Though with two weeks to get ready, you can be sure head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady will have some wrinkles that Seattle has not seen. In fact, it can easily be argued that this is one more chance for New England to play the ''Us Against the World'' card, and it can be spun into an advantage for the Patriots.
The teams had the same record and each had similar point differentials. New England played a harder schedule. The Patriots have outscored the Ravens and Colts by a combined 66-10 since trailing Baltimore 28-14 in the third quarter of their first playoff game. It’s safe to say that the Pats are peaking at the right time.
The Patriots should have a good blueprint on how to contain Russell Wilson in the pocket. He is just an ordinary passer when not allowed to scramble around and make plays with his legs. Green Bay stymied him for 55 minutes and silenced his home crowd throughout until that fateful final five minutes (and overtime, of course).
New England has a much better and more physical secondary this season. Obviously Darrelle Revis is as good as anyone in football at clinging to the No. 1 opposing receiving threat. But Brandon Browner could well be the key here. He played for Seattle last season and his physicality at the other corner will put all sorts of pressure on Seattle and its offense to try and overcome the two Patriot cornerbacks with ordinary to below-par receivers.
Sure, Jermaine Kearse has four touchdown passes in five career games, but he’s also only got five touchdowns in 37 career regular season games. He was the target of all four of Russell Wilson’s interceptions last week, as well.
On the other side, New England has the more explosive weapons, starting with Brady and Rob Gronkowski. This is the first time the Pats have made a deep playoff run with their superhuman tight end being totally healthy. The Seahawks will have fits trying to figure out how to defend “Gronk” over the middle, and he should eat alive anyone in man coverage, and poke holes in a zone defense that’s looked increasingly suspect as the opposing offenses have improved.
Seattle’s healthy defensive stats look that way in large part because of the bevy of poor and/or backup quarterbacks they faced throughout the second half of the season. Brady and Gronkowski present a different set of challenges than what Seattle coach Pete Carroll has had to prepare for all season.
Running back LeGarrette Blount, who is in off a career-high 148 rushing yards, has the Patriot team record with seven postseason touchdowns, and he’s the only player with multiple three-touchdown rushing games in playoff history.
The Patriots played eight games vs. a top 10 yards per play defense this season. Throw out the Week 17 laydown against Buffalo, and New England averaged over 35 points per game in those games.
Five of the last seven Super Bowls have been decided by six points or less. And New England’s five Super Bowls in the Belichick/Brady Era have been decided by 3, 3, 3, 3 and 4 points. With the line being this close to pick, it’s an edge for the Pats to have Belichick roaming their sidelines with the extra prep time. While Pete Carroll is no idiot, he’s also no Belichick.
The Pats should find a way to win a close one given all of their experience in these situations going back a decade and more. Belichick's 21 playoff wins is the most ever for an NFL coach. Brady won his sixth conference title last week; he stands alone as the all-time record holder in that category over John Elway. He will be just the second player to compete in six Super Bowls. Don’t be surprised if he joins Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw as four-time quarterback winners.
WHY SEATTLE CAN WIN:
Two weeks ago Sunday at around 6 p.m. Eastern time, the Super Bowl’s first team looked for all intents and purposes to be Green Bay. The Packers would await the winner of the AFC Championship between Indianapolis and New England in Glendale, Ariz. The first day of February would be the crowning of a new champion.
The visiting Packers led Super Bowl XLVIII champion Seattle 16-7 with barely five minutes remaining and Wilson had just thrown his fourth interception. The Packers had the ball near midfield starting a new drive with a two possession lead. Some of the boisterous Seattle fans headed for the exits.
So what happened?
The heart of a champion can never be underestimated.
Just ask New England, which overcame two touchdown deficits on a pair of occasions to rally past Baltimore, 35-31, in the divisional round.
Seattle came back to win in overtime (the details of which could be discussed in an entire book), and New England clobbered the overmatched Colts, and Super Bowl XLIX was set.
While Brady will lead his team to his record sixth Super Bowl, it’s also important to note that Wilson is the first quarterback to ever start in two Super Bowls in his first three seasons in the league.
His intestinal fortitude cannot be questioned. Wilson was hideous for three quarters in the Green Bay game. Into the fourth quarter, he was 8-for-22 for 75 yards passing with four interceptions and no scores. He is the first quarterback in the Super Bowl era to win a conference title despite throwing four interceptions. George Blanda of the 1961 Houston Oilers was the last one to throw four interceptions and win a conference (at that time, the AFL) crown.
All four of Wilson's interceptions came when he was targeting Jermaine Kearse. Amazingly enough, Kearse now has four straight playoff games with a touchdown catch. He is just the second player with an overtime touchdown in a conference title game. The first was Alan Ameche, who scored for Baltimore in the 1958 NFL title, known to some old enough to recall it as "The Greatest Game Ever Played".
The Seahawks become the first team since San Francisco in 1981 to win a conference title game with five turnovers and the first since the 1982 Jets to win ANY playoff game. Since then, 45 teams lost in the playoffs because they could not overcome all of those turnovers.
Wilson now stands at 10-0 in his career against quarterbacks who have won a Super Bowl. Though, like with the last game, Seattle’s defense deserves all of the credit for doing the heavy lifting.
The Patriots are known mostly for an innovative offense. A new playoff wrinkle they showed against Baltimore and again against Indy was throwing passes to eligible linemen while leaving backs in as ineligible receivers. Quarterback Tom Brady has enough weapons to make the Seahawks sweat for 60 minutes.
New England had just one scoring drive of longer than 65 yards last week against the Colts, who self-destructed after halftime. But long drives are going to be important for New England, since Seattle only allowed 14 passing plays of 25 yards or longer this season, compared to 36 yielded by the Pats. The teams had the exact same number of those long pass plays on offense, which nullifies some of the public perception of the offensive capabilities for each team.
The Seattle defense carried the day in the Super Bowl victory (43-8, and it wasn’t that close) over Denver last year and it was largely responsible for them getting here this year. It has allowed a total of 13 points in the fourth quarter of the last eight games. The 1.63 average is beyond phenomenal in what is usually the highest scoring quarter in football.
The last three teams to win a conference title game in overtime went on to win the Super Bowl; all three were in the NFC, just like Seattle. The 2007 Giants, 2009 Saints and 2011 Giants were the three teams to win the league title game in overtime before the Seahawks did this season (2014).
New England blew out the Colts, but the last 17 double-digit winners in league championship games are just 7-10 in the Super Bowl. The last time a team won the Super Bowl that won its league title game by more than 17 points was 23 years ago. The Pats are in a situation that has seen six teams go 0-6 since the 1992 Super Bowl!
The Pats have not notched a cover in any of the last four Super Bowls since winning their first one over the Rams 14 years ago. The Seahawks get to stay out west and play at a familiar stadium, which should be an edge for the champs. Public perceptions from the last game offer line value to Seattle, which just had its escape. We saw what New England did last game after its escape against Baltimore. Look for the same sort of game here from Seattle, and that should be enough for the Seahawks to lift the Lombardi Trophy in back-to-back seasons.
WHY I LIKE UNDER:
Seattle has won eight straight, covering in all of those games except for the last one, the overtime win over Green Bay where the Seahawks won by six when laying more than that.
The two Super Bowls that New England lost most recently was more of an indictment on the New England offense than it was on the Patriots' defense. In the loss to the Giants that denied New England a perfect 19-0 season, the Giants held them to 14 points. In their 18 wins that season, New England had scored at least 20 points in every other game. In the 21-17 loss to New York four years later, the 17 points scored tied a season low.
Those Giants (both of them) undoubtedly had good defenses, but this Seattle unit is better than either of those and could give New England quarterback Tom Brady fits. After going seven of the first eight games without an interception, Brady has now thrown at least one pick in eight of the last 10 games.
Andy Iskoe of "The Logical Approach" notes that there have been 15 Super Bowls played in the past with four key stats where the same team has the edge over the course of the regular season. The stats are: allowing fewer points, averaging more rushing yards, allowing fewer rushing yards and allowing fewer total yards. Seattle had the edge in all of those categories this season, and that has led to victory for 12 of the 15 teams straight up in past Super Bowls.
Each team survived a monumental scare in the playoffs. Baltimore twice led the Patriots by two touchdowns in the divisional round before New England rallied to secure a non-covering win. Seattle and its escape is obviously much more publicized, considering they were down 16-7 and the Packers had the ball at near midfield with five minutes left after Russell Wilson threw his FOURTH interception of the NFC Championship game.
Each was a top-3 team in the regular season for fewest giveaways, making the ability of Seattle to overcome five turnovers in the NFC title game all the more impressive. Give the Seattle defense all the credit in the world for keeping the game competitive early.
The Packers were only able to score SIX points off FOUR first half Seattle turnovers in the NFC Championship game! The Seahawks held Green Bay to two field goals inside 20 yards in the first quarter, in addition to snaring an interception on the first Packer drive inside the Seattle 30-yard line. Still, they had to come back from 16 points down in the second half. That’s the third-largest comeback to win a title game since the leagues merged.
Seattle is the first defending champion to return to the Super Bowl since the '04 Pats. The Seahawks are also the Super Bowl winning team in a decade to even win a game in the playoffs the following season.
Neither team will have injuries as an excuse. All 106 players have been practicing this week and there should be no surprising developments on the inactives front when that list is released 90 minutes prior to kickoff.
The size, speed, and aggressiveness of Seattle safety Kam Chancellor could slow mammoth Gronkowski down as much any team has this season. He's nearly impossible to stop, but this could at least limit his productivity when lumbering down the field on seam routes. He's the main offensive weapon for the Patriots.
The only way teams have beaten the Seahawks this year has been with an effective and consistent running game. In all four of the Seahawks’ losses, foes had at least 27 carries and more than 100 yards. San Diego, Dallas, Kansas City and St. Louis all successfully did this, and Green Bay had 135 yards on 30 carries in the NFC title game. But Seattle does have the second-best rushing defense in the league, and the Pats struggled to run the ball at all against Baltimore in their first playoff game, not even giving the ball to a running back after halftime.
On the other side, we all saw what the New England defense did to Indianapolis, and this Seattle offense is far less talented and far less sophisticated. The Seahawks don’t have a good passing game, so it would behoove the Seahawks to run the ball early and often with powerful Marshawn Lynch.
Wilson had thrown just 1 interception in the playoffs, before his 4 last vs the Packers, all of which were targeted for Kearse. You can bet he’ll be more careful in this one, and I expect there to be no more than two turnovers in this one (save for a possible late garbage pick thrown by the rallying team in desperation time).
Pete Carroll is creative enough to figure out how to get the ball to his playmakers, and the Seahawks figure to take a page out of the Baltimore playbook by getting Lynch and Robert Turbin out on the edge while getting Doug Baldwin and tight end Luke Willson involved in the middle of the field. Still, Seattle will not win this game with their offense.
First one to 20 points wins this one in what shapes up to be a tight game. I will call for a 20-17 final score. Gun to my head, Seattle wins it. Since I missed the best number (anything more than 48), I’ll pass.
Back later with some prop plays, but might not post until tomorrow because it’s tough to find outs for these things. GL!
:shake:
:cheers:
WHY NEW ENGLAND CAN WIN:
Super Bowl XLIX is a fun matchup between the top seeds in the AFC and NFC. That is as simple as it can be put, and the matchup (in addition to all of the other soap-opera-type happenings in the NFL the last few months) could well draw a record television audience.
While Seattle had to pull off a miraculous comeback to dump Green Bay in overtime in the NFC Championship, the Patriots blasted Indianapolis 45-7 in the AFC title game.
This battle pits teams that have each caused the league to change the rules in the last few years. The Pats were a clutching and grabbing team; the Seahawks play rough and tough with receivers and were the driving force behind the league calling more pass interference and illegal contact penalties this season.
I will not say anything about the deflated footballs controversy surrounding the Patriots since the AFC Championship domination of the Colts, other than that it might have played a small distraction in the New England preparation for this game. Though with two weeks to get ready, you can be sure head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady will have some wrinkles that Seattle has not seen. In fact, it can easily be argued that this is one more chance for New England to play the ''Us Against the World'' card, and it can be spun into an advantage for the Patriots.
The teams had the same record and each had similar point differentials. New England played a harder schedule. The Patriots have outscored the Ravens and Colts by a combined 66-10 since trailing Baltimore 28-14 in the third quarter of their first playoff game. It’s safe to say that the Pats are peaking at the right time.
The Patriots should have a good blueprint on how to contain Russell Wilson in the pocket. He is just an ordinary passer when not allowed to scramble around and make plays with his legs. Green Bay stymied him for 55 minutes and silenced his home crowd throughout until that fateful final five minutes (and overtime, of course).
New England has a much better and more physical secondary this season. Obviously Darrelle Revis is as good as anyone in football at clinging to the No. 1 opposing receiving threat. But Brandon Browner could well be the key here. He played for Seattle last season and his physicality at the other corner will put all sorts of pressure on Seattle and its offense to try and overcome the two Patriot cornerbacks with ordinary to below-par receivers.
Sure, Jermaine Kearse has four touchdown passes in five career games, but he’s also only got five touchdowns in 37 career regular season games. He was the target of all four of Russell Wilson’s interceptions last week, as well.
On the other side, New England has the more explosive weapons, starting with Brady and Rob Gronkowski. This is the first time the Pats have made a deep playoff run with their superhuman tight end being totally healthy. The Seahawks will have fits trying to figure out how to defend “Gronk” over the middle, and he should eat alive anyone in man coverage, and poke holes in a zone defense that’s looked increasingly suspect as the opposing offenses have improved.
Seattle’s healthy defensive stats look that way in large part because of the bevy of poor and/or backup quarterbacks they faced throughout the second half of the season. Brady and Gronkowski present a different set of challenges than what Seattle coach Pete Carroll has had to prepare for all season.
Running back LeGarrette Blount, who is in off a career-high 148 rushing yards, has the Patriot team record with seven postseason touchdowns, and he’s the only player with multiple three-touchdown rushing games in playoff history.
The Patriots played eight games vs. a top 10 yards per play defense this season. Throw out the Week 17 laydown against Buffalo, and New England averaged over 35 points per game in those games.
Five of the last seven Super Bowls have been decided by six points or less. And New England’s five Super Bowls in the Belichick/Brady Era have been decided by 3, 3, 3, 3 and 4 points. With the line being this close to pick, it’s an edge for the Pats to have Belichick roaming their sidelines with the extra prep time. While Pete Carroll is no idiot, he’s also no Belichick.
The Pats should find a way to win a close one given all of their experience in these situations going back a decade and more. Belichick's 21 playoff wins is the most ever for an NFL coach. Brady won his sixth conference title last week; he stands alone as the all-time record holder in that category over John Elway. He will be just the second player to compete in six Super Bowls. Don’t be surprised if he joins Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw as four-time quarterback winners.
WHY SEATTLE CAN WIN:
Two weeks ago Sunday at around 6 p.m. Eastern time, the Super Bowl’s first team looked for all intents and purposes to be Green Bay. The Packers would await the winner of the AFC Championship between Indianapolis and New England in Glendale, Ariz. The first day of February would be the crowning of a new champion.
The visiting Packers led Super Bowl XLVIII champion Seattle 16-7 with barely five minutes remaining and Wilson had just thrown his fourth interception. The Packers had the ball near midfield starting a new drive with a two possession lead. Some of the boisterous Seattle fans headed for the exits.
So what happened?
The heart of a champion can never be underestimated.
Just ask New England, which overcame two touchdown deficits on a pair of occasions to rally past Baltimore, 35-31, in the divisional round.
Seattle came back to win in overtime (the details of which could be discussed in an entire book), and New England clobbered the overmatched Colts, and Super Bowl XLIX was set.
While Brady will lead his team to his record sixth Super Bowl, it’s also important to note that Wilson is the first quarterback to ever start in two Super Bowls in his first three seasons in the league.
His intestinal fortitude cannot be questioned. Wilson was hideous for three quarters in the Green Bay game. Into the fourth quarter, he was 8-for-22 for 75 yards passing with four interceptions and no scores. He is the first quarterback in the Super Bowl era to win a conference title despite throwing four interceptions. George Blanda of the 1961 Houston Oilers was the last one to throw four interceptions and win a conference (at that time, the AFL) crown.
All four of Wilson's interceptions came when he was targeting Jermaine Kearse. Amazingly enough, Kearse now has four straight playoff games with a touchdown catch. He is just the second player with an overtime touchdown in a conference title game. The first was Alan Ameche, who scored for Baltimore in the 1958 NFL title, known to some old enough to recall it as "The Greatest Game Ever Played".
The Seahawks become the first team since San Francisco in 1981 to win a conference title game with five turnovers and the first since the 1982 Jets to win ANY playoff game. Since then, 45 teams lost in the playoffs because they could not overcome all of those turnovers.
Wilson now stands at 10-0 in his career against quarterbacks who have won a Super Bowl. Though, like with the last game, Seattle’s defense deserves all of the credit for doing the heavy lifting.
The Patriots are known mostly for an innovative offense. A new playoff wrinkle they showed against Baltimore and again against Indy was throwing passes to eligible linemen while leaving backs in as ineligible receivers. Quarterback Tom Brady has enough weapons to make the Seahawks sweat for 60 minutes.
New England had just one scoring drive of longer than 65 yards last week against the Colts, who self-destructed after halftime. But long drives are going to be important for New England, since Seattle only allowed 14 passing plays of 25 yards or longer this season, compared to 36 yielded by the Pats. The teams had the exact same number of those long pass plays on offense, which nullifies some of the public perception of the offensive capabilities for each team.
The Seattle defense carried the day in the Super Bowl victory (43-8, and it wasn’t that close) over Denver last year and it was largely responsible for them getting here this year. It has allowed a total of 13 points in the fourth quarter of the last eight games. The 1.63 average is beyond phenomenal in what is usually the highest scoring quarter in football.
The last three teams to win a conference title game in overtime went on to win the Super Bowl; all three were in the NFC, just like Seattle. The 2007 Giants, 2009 Saints and 2011 Giants were the three teams to win the league title game in overtime before the Seahawks did this season (2014).
New England blew out the Colts, but the last 17 double-digit winners in league championship games are just 7-10 in the Super Bowl. The last time a team won the Super Bowl that won its league title game by more than 17 points was 23 years ago. The Pats are in a situation that has seen six teams go 0-6 since the 1992 Super Bowl!
The Pats have not notched a cover in any of the last four Super Bowls since winning their first one over the Rams 14 years ago. The Seahawks get to stay out west and play at a familiar stadium, which should be an edge for the champs. Public perceptions from the last game offer line value to Seattle, which just had its escape. We saw what New England did last game after its escape against Baltimore. Look for the same sort of game here from Seattle, and that should be enough for the Seahawks to lift the Lombardi Trophy in back-to-back seasons.
WHY I LIKE UNDER:
Seattle has won eight straight, covering in all of those games except for the last one, the overtime win over Green Bay where the Seahawks won by six when laying more than that.
The two Super Bowls that New England lost most recently was more of an indictment on the New England offense than it was on the Patriots' defense. In the loss to the Giants that denied New England a perfect 19-0 season, the Giants held them to 14 points. In their 18 wins that season, New England had scored at least 20 points in every other game. In the 21-17 loss to New York four years later, the 17 points scored tied a season low.
Those Giants (both of them) undoubtedly had good defenses, but this Seattle unit is better than either of those and could give New England quarterback Tom Brady fits. After going seven of the first eight games without an interception, Brady has now thrown at least one pick in eight of the last 10 games.
Andy Iskoe of "The Logical Approach" notes that there have been 15 Super Bowls played in the past with four key stats where the same team has the edge over the course of the regular season. The stats are: allowing fewer points, averaging more rushing yards, allowing fewer rushing yards and allowing fewer total yards. Seattle had the edge in all of those categories this season, and that has led to victory for 12 of the 15 teams straight up in past Super Bowls.
Each team survived a monumental scare in the playoffs. Baltimore twice led the Patriots by two touchdowns in the divisional round before New England rallied to secure a non-covering win. Seattle and its escape is obviously much more publicized, considering they were down 16-7 and the Packers had the ball at near midfield with five minutes left after Russell Wilson threw his FOURTH interception of the NFC Championship game.
Each was a top-3 team in the regular season for fewest giveaways, making the ability of Seattle to overcome five turnovers in the NFC title game all the more impressive. Give the Seattle defense all the credit in the world for keeping the game competitive early.
The Packers were only able to score SIX points off FOUR first half Seattle turnovers in the NFC Championship game! The Seahawks held Green Bay to two field goals inside 20 yards in the first quarter, in addition to snaring an interception on the first Packer drive inside the Seattle 30-yard line. Still, they had to come back from 16 points down in the second half. That’s the third-largest comeback to win a title game since the leagues merged.
Seattle is the first defending champion to return to the Super Bowl since the '04 Pats. The Seahawks are also the Super Bowl winning team in a decade to even win a game in the playoffs the following season.
Neither team will have injuries as an excuse. All 106 players have been practicing this week and there should be no surprising developments on the inactives front when that list is released 90 minutes prior to kickoff.
The size, speed, and aggressiveness of Seattle safety Kam Chancellor could slow mammoth Gronkowski down as much any team has this season. He's nearly impossible to stop, but this could at least limit his productivity when lumbering down the field on seam routes. He's the main offensive weapon for the Patriots.
The only way teams have beaten the Seahawks this year has been with an effective and consistent running game. In all four of the Seahawks’ losses, foes had at least 27 carries and more than 100 yards. San Diego, Dallas, Kansas City and St. Louis all successfully did this, and Green Bay had 135 yards on 30 carries in the NFC title game. But Seattle does have the second-best rushing defense in the league, and the Pats struggled to run the ball at all against Baltimore in their first playoff game, not even giving the ball to a running back after halftime.
On the other side, we all saw what the New England defense did to Indianapolis, and this Seattle offense is far less talented and far less sophisticated. The Seahawks don’t have a good passing game, so it would behoove the Seahawks to run the ball early and often with powerful Marshawn Lynch.
Wilson had thrown just 1 interception in the playoffs, before his 4 last vs the Packers, all of which were targeted for Kearse. You can bet he’ll be more careful in this one, and I expect there to be no more than two turnovers in this one (save for a possible late garbage pick thrown by the rallying team in desperation time).
Pete Carroll is creative enough to figure out how to get the ball to his playmakers, and the Seahawks figure to take a page out of the Baltimore playbook by getting Lynch and Robert Turbin out on the edge while getting Doug Baldwin and tight end Luke Willson involved in the middle of the field. Still, Seattle will not win this game with their offense.
First one to 20 points wins this one in what shapes up to be a tight game. I will call for a 20-17 final score. Gun to my head, Seattle wins it. Since I missed the best number (anything more than 48), I’ll pass.
Back later with some prop plays, but might not post until tomorrow because it’s tough to find outs for these things. GL!
:shake:
:cheers:
