Super Bowl XLIX Predictions

[DemPGH]

It's strength-on-strength like it was last year.

Seattle surprised me by how inept they were in the first half yesterday. Didn't get a first down or a completion until a few minutes before halftime and essentially spotted the Packers a 16-0 lead. They roared back, but they can't do that in the S.B.

The Colts are garbage against the Patriots, that's clear. They can't even match up against them. Colts vs. Patriots is like a mismatch on video game football.

I think the Seahawks have too much heart. They'll get the win 35-31 or so. If they can pressure Brady, a little bit more than that.

[DemPGH]

Is "Amount of Heart" now an official stat? When did Elias start keeping track of that one?

Okay, we'll pretend that intangibles don't exist. No, spirit is not measured. That's why it's called spirit.

I'll take Seattle's number 1 defense on yards and points (number 1 by a mile in both areas - first time that's happened in back-to-back years since 1985-86) against the pocket passer Brady, which is precisely what they excel against.

I'll take the fact that they turned the ball over five freaking times and still won the game, and not only turned the ball over, but turned it over deep in their own territory. I'll grant that they cannot do that against the Pats, but I don't think they will because that was an aberration.

That better? (Probably not).

[DemPGH]

Yeah, 11 out of 12 balls were deflated. A little over two hours prior to kickoff, the balls checked out. Sometime between then and kickoff the balls lost a hell of a lot of air. Magic?

One thing about Bill, he's got more angles than a protractor.

I also don't think that New England will get caught sleeping in the second half like Green Bay was. They won't make those stupid mistakes that the Packers made - they'll play to win for 60 minutes.

I doubt Seattle will play as uncharacteristically bad as they did in the first 3 quarters, either.

Agreed. I doubt very much that they'll have five turnovers. If they do, they'll get beat for sure.

Would love to see Wilson as MVP. He deserves it. I think he'll play a much better game in the S.B.

[DemPGH]

What a disgusting ending. It's like watching a movie that builds and builds and then all of a sudden you get the crappiest ending imaginable. Even if I had been neutral I'd have said, "Wow, that was bad."

Well, that was a great game until the last forty seconds.

Absolutely. On the goal line, down four, and call a slant into coverage when Marshawn Lynch was rolling?? Anything would have been better than that. I'm positively baffled. A professional football coach would call that in that situation? (Oh, it was also not a good throw either). To a lesser extent I was also a bit nonplussed that Belichick was allowing the clock to bleed out. He probably assumed they'd score like literally everyone else did and he'd have a little under :30 with a couple of timeouts to get in FG range to tie, which was actually quite possible.

Ugh. That'll haunt the Seahawks for a long time.