It's a wretched and disgusting Super Bowl this year

Are you excited about this Super Bowl match-up?  If so, your from Boston or New York.  That's all.  Only this and nothing more.  There is nothing here for a West Coast guy in Los Angeles to be interested in.

Couldn't be worse if you ask me.  This exactly the match up we didn't need to see.  This is the worst of all possible combo scenarios given our four contestants.  Now we have to listen to endless bullshit about Bellichick getting a shot at redeeming his erstwhile undefeated season.  We have to listen to endless bullshit about the Giants proving that SB42 wasn't a fluke event.

In short, it is going to be absolutely horrendous 14 day period until we can get this goddamn fucking sonofabitch bastard whore season over with.  The NFL Network's viewership is going down by one DVR count.  ESPN's viewership is going down by one count.  I won't be tuning in for any of this.

I'm watching the FoodNetwork, BioHD, and ScienceHD.

I don't need to listen to any of this hype.  I am not interested in the narrative you are about to weave.  I do not need to listen Boston yelling at New York and New York yelling back again.  It's an All-East-Coast food-fight just made perfect for goddamn fucking ESPN.

To all of the Sports Writers of America:  The Super Bowl narrative you are about to weave absolutely sucks.  I'm talking about a raw-red stinker of a lousy sports story.  Fuck you in the ass... twice... hard... with no lube!

I just might skip the Super Bowl this year.  The last time I did that, it was Super Bowl XXIV.  That was a good one to skip, by the way.  Horrible game.  Worst ever.

All I can say is this:  The Giants better win this game.  You know you will never hear the end of the fluke talk if you don't.  If you double-down and jam the Patriots a second time, it will be quite glorious.  You will be able to give Boston the finger forever more.

I have to say, it was an utterly disgraceful win the Patriots got away with.  You know the story.  Everybody has reported on it.  If Lee Evans doesn't drop the game winning touchdown pass, the Ravens go to the Super Bowl.  If Billy Cundiff doesn't follow that immediately with a shanked field goal, we go into overtime.  What a disgraceful and ignominious way to back-door your way into the Super Bowl.  This is highly characteristic of Bellichick.

This wasn't Joseph's fault folks.  He played well enough to win.  He didn't lose this battle for you.

You better be ready for the Harbaugh Bowl II

I have been increasingly sickened by the hype leading up to the AFC & NFC Championship games.  The drivel logic, poppycock reasoning, and bullshit theory I am hearing these days is the purest examples of East Coast bias a-la ESPN and Bristol Connecticut that I have encountered in the past 5 or 6 years.  It is ferociously disgusting and a violent abomination to the eye and ear.

I take great solace in the fact that ya'all are about to have 10,000 pounds of egg on your face.  Not a quantum of solace but great solace.  Better hedge your bets, chumps.

The AFC Championship

Let us begin (in alphabetical order) with the AFC Championship game.  All the fools of football are utterly convinced that Baltimore Ravens don't have a chance in this game.  Why?  Because Tom Brady is better than Joe Flacco.  Believe me, your reasoning is just that simple.  It ain't any better than that.  When confronted by your simpleton-logic, you may attempt to improve on it a bit, or simply defend it, but this is your argument.  Only this and nothing more.  

Well what about the rest of the teams in question?  It doesn't matter, you say.  Brady is better than Flacco.  The Patriots will win.  This is essentially the same argument that was made about the Broncos and Steelers.  Roethlisberger is a clutch guy and much better than Tebow.  The Broncos have a 0.00000000000000% chance winning.  You saw where your logic got you, didn't you?  Still you have not take corrective action and mended your ways.  You have not discarded the super-simpleton theory you cleave to, have you?

You are forgetting that this is always a team sport, the ultimate teams sport, and very seldom a quarterback dual.  One QB does not defeat another.  One team defeats another.  If you don't think so, you are absolutely and completely wrong, point-blank period.

Only four facts need to be evaluated to understand why the Ravens are going to win this game:

1. The Ravens have the most elite defense in the NFL, point-blank period.  It doesn't matter what the bullshit yardage stats say.  Four of the NFL's top 25 players are concentrated on that unit.  They are the best defensive unit in football.
2. The Patriots do not have anything approaching an elite defense, and they don't have anything approaching a top 25 player either.
3. When the Ravens play an elite team, they rise to the occasion and win.  They defeated playoff teams like the 49ers, got two wins over the Texans, two over the Steelers, two over the Bengals.   This includes clutch-QB play from Joe Flacco, who brought them back in the final moments against the Steelers.  When they play an inferior and rebuilding squad, like the Chargers, they have a tendency to look past the opponent and lose.  I don't think they are looking past the Patriots.
4. When the Patriots play a playoff team, they mostly loose.  Consider back-to-back losses to the Steelers and Giants.  They were also had by the Bills.  They nearly lost to both the Cowboys and Redskins.  When it comes to beating playoff teams, they have beaten the Broncos and the Broncos.  That's it.  An 8-8 squad that wasn't even supposed to contend this year.   The Patriots are not a powerful team, no matter what Bristol Connecticut and ESPN would like you to believe. 

Since the Ravens are not talking much trash right now, I will do it for them.  

Tom Brady will be checking his prostate after every play in the early going of this game, just to make sure it still up in there.  That's because the Raven defense is going to be knocking it loose.  This will cease sometime during the second quarter because Brady will have a bird's-eye view of that prostate after T-Sizzle shoves his head up his ass with one violent thrust.

Say what you will about Tom Brady, but I don't think he can throw the football very accurately with his head shoved up his arse.

As far as I am concerned, the Patriots are the longest of the long-shots still left in this tournament.  This is the one team that doesn't have a chance.  This game features one heavy-weight and one rooty-poot.  In case you were wondering, the Patriots are the rooty-poot.

The NFC Championship Game

After witnessing the massacre of the Patriots, we can move on to a truly epic contest:  the Giants vs. the 49ers.  Everybody knows this going to be the game of the day.  This is going to be the nail-bitter and the big drama.   This is the one where both teams can win.  This is the heavy-weight fight.

In terms of record, the 49ers are clearly the better team.  On paper, the Giants are clearly the better team. Eli looks like the better QB.  However, Alex Smith is astonishing everybody.  Both have very violent defenses.  The 49ers are much higher ranked, but the Giants are peaking right now.

I think the 49ers win.  I'll tell you why.

Everyone is talking about how the Giants are peaking right now, but I will tell you the dirty little secret ESPN is keeping in the closet.  The 49ers are peaking right now also.  They have never played better than they did in there last game.  Further, they are the more consistent team.  Finally, they are at home.

I think this is going to be an epic contest.  We have to muddle through a poor AFC Championship game so we can get to a real contest.  I am looking forward to this one.

In conclusion, you better be ready for the Harbaugh Bowl.  It's going to happen.

In praise of Ben Roethlisberger

Suddenly all of the media pundits have discovered that Ben Roethlisberger is a great QB. Suddenly, Ben is better than Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Suddenly, he is most clutch guy in the NFL, and the dude you want in that life & death moment at the end of the game. Suddenly, there is a great out-pouring of praise for Ben Roethlisberger.

Where the fuck were you two years ago when Ben Roethlisberger out-dueled Kurt Warner in the Super Bowl? I though Kurt slew him. Ben popped right back up and led his team on the game winning drive. That hurt me like hell by the way.

This wasn't the first time Ben had done such a thing either. Far from it. He stole a bunch of games en route to the Super Bowl. He's been stealing games right and left in the final moments for quite some time now. They should call them the Stealers.

In case you don't remember, Ben was in deep shit a year ago. The Steelers were trying to trade him to my Rams. I wrote about this subject two or three times on Bleacher Report. You can find these pieces, written more than year ago, where I said that Ben was a clutch guy, and very under-rated. I also said he was greazie-basterd.

I am very ambivalent about Ben Roethlisberger. He embodies the best and the worst of the Pisces guy, which is what he is. I am a Virgo with Virgo rising. Pisces is on my 7th house. I am fundimentally biased to partner-up with a dude like Roethlisberger in just about any enterprise, especially football.

At the same time I say this, Roethlisberger manifests all those negative qualities of Pisces I have written about. He drinks like a champion, and this is why the comish sent him to rehab. He manifests impared jugement in situations away from the field. He's a morally grungy dude, and you know exactly what I am talking about. He does not analyze or assess risk correctly. This is both his strength and his weakness. On the field he is not afraid to gunsling. Off the field he is not afraid to continue gunslinging by other means.

There are two Ben Roethlisbergers: the guy you love and the guy you hate. He is like two fish lashed together at their tails, swimming in opposite directions, against each other. Incidentally, this is symbolic image of Pisces, which is what Ben is.

You might ask the following question: how can a conservative, analytical, hermit, Virgo partner-up with and risk-assessment impaired Pisces gun-slinger? It beats the hell out of me, par, but I've done it more than once in my life. I know it happens. It just happens naturally. We wind up in the same room somehow, and they have a tendency to seek me out. We gravitate together, and we strike up a partnership. We are opposites, but we form a complentary tao.

There is a saying in Spanish that goes "God makes them and they get together on their own." This is said whenever you see any strange partnership that seems to work. Pisces & Virgo are kind of like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

Just to give you one example: My current employers hired me because the most senior programmer in the shop just happened to be a Pisces from New Delhi, India. For some strange reason or another, he had a strong feeling that I was the candidate he wanted for the job. The bosses were not too keen on the idea. He advocated my case, and told the bosses I was the guy they had to hire. I found out a year later he was a 3/6/1970 Pisces dude. It turns out his brother is a Virgo. It turns out my brother is a Pisces. Go figure.

Incidentally, Terry Bradshaw is a Virgo and rolled with a bunch of Pisces partners including Franco Harris, Rockie Blier, Lynn Swann, and Mike Webster. No bullshit. Check it out, prove me wrong, then go figure. For whatever reason, we partner up.

The Steelers win, the Jets lost it

The Steelers did precisely the thing I believed they would not do in this game: They ran their way to a massive 24-0 lead in the first half. They were able to parachute to victory from that high vantage point.

Everything went wrong for the Jets in the first half... except for a single field goal. The Jets roared back in the second half, making the final 24-19, but they fell short. They could not overcome their bad start.

The Steelers go for the 8th time

I wish I could be happy about the Steelers making it to an 8th Super Bowl. They do have some likable characters, and great relationship with their people. I just feel that it is a touch too much. I've seen enough of these guys for the rest of eternity.

I should be glad if they win. All the Bellichick sycophants will have trouble defending the notion that they are the team of the decade. The Steeler fans will argue with them. This could be the decade with two teams of the decade. That would fuck up things royally.

Fortunately, I think the Packers will spare us of this fate.

Still, the notion of the Steelers getting a 7th trophy really pisses me off. This seems like too much for anyone team at this point.

In truth, the Steelers just can't help it. The Steelers play in the inferior AFC, where many rooty-poots dwell. Naturally, the Steeler organization is the best of the best in this Busch-league. In this setting, a great organization like the Steelers will go more often than anyone else. No other organization has the Steeler's commitment to excellence on the AFC side.

This means you, Al. Stick that in your silvery sash and smoke it with your black mustache.

Think about this folks, the Marque franchises from the early days of the AFL/AFC such as the Chiefs, Raiders and Dolphins have basically rolled over and died. {The Chiefs are coming back now} Latter-day AFC powerhouses, such as the Broncos, are in a state of shambles. Bellichick is trying to rebuild his Patriots. Rex is trying to reform Jet culture completely.

There are many Busch-league organizations in the AFC. We know that this is a very lopsided conference with a few greats franchises committed to winning decade-in and decade-out. Just remember: The Steelers are the old NFL, not the AFL. The Packers were playing the Steelers in the old NFL long before the AFL was ever founded.

So I am actually going to make a Super Bowl XLV Prediction

As you know, I have had little or no confidence in predictions since the start of this tournament. This is a fluke year. It may even be the ultimate fluke year. Initially, I was not going to attempt a prediction in this season where predictability in the system has fallen to ZERO.

I thought better of it on Friday at work. I drew an NFC/AFC championship bracket on the big white board in our programmer's section of the office. I made my predictions. I was going to chose the Bears and the Jets, both underdogs on Las Vegas betting lines. I felt this was the righteous conclusion to the ultimate fluke year.

The Jets went on the board with ease, despite the fact that I was wearing a Kevin Greene Steeler jersey. [Kevin was initially my favorite player on the Rams, and he is now coaching the Blood Line for the Packers. He should be in the hall of fame.]

As I went to the board to write the Bears into the NFC bracket for Super Bowl XLV, a still small voice warned me not to do it. An invisible hand seemed to hold me back. I tried to write the Bears in again. Once again, my hand was stayed. I decided it was foolish to mess with the feelings of trepidation I had about picking the Bears. I figured I had been warned. I wrote in the Packers.

So there you have folks, my prediction: Packers vs. Jets in Super Bowl XLV. Is this a fitting end to the ultimate fluke year? I think so. You will have a pair of #6 seeds climbing to the summit, winning all their games on the road. The odds against that are pretty astronomical. This is a pretty damn good fluke, even though one of the two favorites will win (if this prediction is correct).

I would really rather chose the Bears. Lovie Smith and Mike Martz are are old Ram coaches. I would very much like to see them win the Super Bowl. It will make up for the horror of Super Bowl XXXVI... in some small measure. I will rejoice if you guys win it. Still, I just can't seem to make that pick.

Let's hope for some great games.

The correct ending to this fuke year

As you know, predictability in the NFL Playoff system has reached a point fairly close to ZERO. If every game were an upset, we would simply pick the team least likely to win under normal conditions. However, a few teams have won at home. A few higher seeds have taken down lower seeds. This greatly increases the noise in the system. The signal to noise ratio has almost bottomed out.

I am sure Las Vegas is awash in money. 2011 is already one hell of a good year for Vegas. Some poor benighted souls think Vegas only makes money if they pick the winners correctly. Not true. Perish the thought! Vegas makes money when more than 50% of the dollars wagered ride on a loosing proposition. This is a very different formula.

Speaking of putting money on a losing formula... Only a few stupid suckers put money down on the Jets yesterday. All the smart money was on the Patriots. This is why all the bookies in Vegas awoke this morning with happy Christmas smiles on their faces. They feel it is a great day to be alive and be an American. I'll tell you one thing: This is a great day to be alive and be an American if you are a heretic/apostate unbeliever in Jesus Bellichick.

But I digress... We're in trouble folks. Picking favorites in these conference championship games is going be a trecherous affair.

If we say that the best approach is to select by record, seed, and homefield advantage, the Bears play the Steelers in SB45. That is a dangerous pick in this year of the fluke. If we say that the worst possible approach is to chose by record and seed, the Packers play the Jets. Of course, this may yet happen in the year of the fluke. If we crosswire for the most powerful looking teams, we will probably chose the Packers and Steelers, in a battle of used-to-was dynasties in rather small markets.

Now if we chose for the most unlikely combo of teams possible, we will honor the year of the fluke, and pick the Bears vs Jets. Surely, this is a matchup that elitists like Colin Cowherd will utterly detest. These two teams have a total of two Lombardi trophies between them. They have done it, but they are two least storied franchises we have left. What mythological storylines of NFL Royalty and Nobility will the elitist tell in the two weeks leading up to the Bears v Jets?

Maybe they will declare that the meek have inherited the earth? You know the news guys are always praying for the big story. They are cheering for a good hype line.

On the other hand, New York will be battling Chicago, and that should generate plenty of ratings. The big city press machines are going to love that. In the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, you should tell the story of the rivalry between New York and Chicago... not just in sports, but all things Americana. You can start with Pizza and work up to Steakhouses.

Of course, Los Angeles cannot participate because we just don't have any football teams here. Tough shit.

Do we dare to pick the Bears v Jets...?