The result of Sunday's Super Bowl will tell us of either the resurrection of a proud dynasty, or the triumphant final lap of a proud champion.
For Baltimore's Ray Lewis, this is the last mile. The last game. He has promised he will not perform his signature pre-game dance, which says he doesn't want to call any more attention to himself on the biggest stage. As it is, Lewis, the only one left from the 2000 Ravens team that beat the Giants in Super Bowl 35, has enough on his plate. As we documented earlier this week, Mitch Ross, from Sports With Alternatives To Steroids (SWATS), claimed he gave Lewis deer antler spray to help accelerate his recovery from a torn bicep injury. Ross, however, has dug himself a deeper hole by claiming he also supplied a number of other athletes, including the Giants' Steve Weatherford (who, like Lewis, has denied any association with Ross) and golfer Vijay Singh. No one had actually heard of deer antler spray before this week, and ESPN's Around The Horn poked fun at it via panelist Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times, who did a brief comedy skit on the show while on location in New Orleans, where he's covering the game for the Times. Ross' 15 minutes will wind down soon enough.
The San Francisco 49ers were The team of the 80's, with Joe Montana leading them to 4 titles. They added a 5th with Steve Young (now with ESPN) at QB in 1995, beating San Diego. Now, they are poised to return to the elite level with a 2nd year QB, Colin Kaepernick, who has become quite the sensation. In the regular season, Washington's rookie superstar, Robert Griffin III, befuddled the Ravens' defense with the read-option offense, which is what the Niners also use. However, as was suggested elsewhere, the Ravens can use what they learned in that loss to Washington to their advantage, and prepare a defense to stop Kaepernick, or, at the very least, slow him down. Otherwise, it'll be an air show between Kaepernick and Baltimore's Joe Flacco, the 5th year signal caller out of Delaware. Flacco didn't exactly endear himself to the New York press earlier in the week when he implied that next year's game, scheduled for Met Life Stadium at the Meadowlands, was a "retarded" decision. Bad choice of words. The Super Bowl has been played in warmer climates or in domed stadiums. For all the flak he's taken for some of his decisions, commissioner Roger Goodell, truth be told, got it right by experimenting with playing the Big Game in a cold climate. Like, why not? A good number of playoff games are contested in frigid temperatures, so why should the Super Bowl be any different?
Because it's more about the entertainment aspects of it all, as far as the league's television partners are concerned. The game is now played the first weekend in February because that month is one of the "sweeps" periods during the television season, where networks set ad rates for the following quarter. This, and not the expanded playoffs, is the underlying reason for moving the game out of its traditional late January berth.
Strip away the halftime entertainment and the overhyped, obscenely expensive commercials geared mostly for the casual, inebriated armchair quarterbacks in the audience, and it's all about the game, as it should be. It's gotten to the point where, in the last several years, they've added halftime concerts to games played on Thanksgiving! What's next? NBC's Football Night In America suddenly gives its halftime to the WWE? Perish the thought, as scary as that sounds.
Back to the game. If it comes down to the passing game, or special teams, it becomes a track meet. Baltimore's Jacoby Jones (who came over from Houston) vs. San Francisco's Ted Ginn, Jr., the former speed burner from Ohio State whom Miami gave up on. Kaepernick & Flacco will light up the sky for sure. Ray Rice, Frank Gore, et al, will chew up yardage like most of us will be chomping down on pizza and/or chicken wings during the game. In the end, it'll come down to the kicking game. San Francisco's David Akers has not been his usual All Pro self this season. Baltimore's Justin Tucker was a hero when the Ravens upset New England in September, and has played like a veteran, not the rookie he really is. This is Ray Lewis' last game, but it may also be fini for Akers in San Francisco if he doesn't deliver. My advice to him is to keep his Twitter account closed for about a month, win or lose.
The pick---Ravens 31, Niners 28.
Of course, I could be wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment