Super Bowl Pick
And now for something completely the same. Which is to say, here’s my official Super Bowl XXXIX pick:
New England (-7) vs Philadelphia
Let’s start with a rundown of stuff that doesn’t matter.
The overconfidence, or spoiledness, of some (many?) New England fans won’t have any bearing on the outcome of this game. Regardless of what Eagles fans looking for any source of hope and more fatalistic/gloomy Pats fans looking for some sign that the end is near may believe, the spooky shit doesn’t actually affect what happens on the field. That stuff’s all in our heads. If the Eagles manage to win, it’ll be because they play a better game than the Patriots, and nothing else.
Who knows or doesn’t know or pretends not to know whomever else’s names or numbers. It’s all talk. It’s great for hype, and it’s sort of entertaining, but it’s really just a bunch of bullshit.
Dynasty, destiny, yada, yada, yada. Not that all that stuff doesn’t make for fun and interesting pre-game conversation. It does. But no one on the field is gonna be thinking about whether the Pats are a dynasty or the Eagles are a team of destiny. They’re gonna be thinking about executing plays and winning the game at hand. That’s what got these two teams to Jacksonville and that’s what’s gonna get one of them a Lombardi trophy at the end of the day.
Which team I pick to win. Which team any given expert picks to win. Which team any given current or former NFL star player picks to win. Which team your uncle Fred picks to win. And which team you want to win. It’s good to have an opinion. It’s great to have a team to root for in the Super Bowl. But the result on the field is gonna depend only on which team executes better. That’s it.
So you’ve seen my statistical breakdowns below (if not, and you’re reading the next few paragraphs thinking, “He’s not backing this shit up,” then you should, because I have), here’s what I expect to see on Sunday:
Forget all that stuff about establishing the run on offense and stopping it on D. Yeah, you need to do that, but it’s too simple to state here. The team that will win this game will be the team that launches a balanced attack on offense and disrupts the other team’s ability to do the same.
I expect the Eagles defense to come out blitzing, not just because it’s what they do, but because they know they’ve got to keep Tom Brady from getting into a rhythm and they’re gonna believe the way to do that is to get into the backfield and maybe log some sacks early, get Brady, who has taken five sacks in the post-season to date, looking over his shoulder. I don’t see that working. The Pats’ offensive line is beyond solid. They’re gonna be looking for those blitzes. Brady is a master of reading defenses to take advantage of the kind of mismatches the blitz invariably creates. And Corey Dillon is too potent a weapon for a defense to ignore.
I see Dillon having a good bit of success against the Eagles’ weak run defense, though probably not in the first quarter. If Corey has big numbers at the end of the first period, this thing is over. More likely, though, you’ll see the Pats move the ball early on in much the same way they always do, with a mix of running plays and short, high-percentage passing plays. They won’t test the Eagles’ outstanding secondary deep until sometime around the middle of the second quarter, after they’ve spanked the Eagles for big gains on short routes a few times.
The Pats D won’t sweat Terrell Owens. That’s not because T.O.’s not at 100 percent (though, clearly, he isn’t), but because you’re not gonna play the Eagles’ strong passing game any differently because T.O.’s out, so you don’t play it differently because he’s in. The Pats will show blitz a lot and then fall back into Cover 2, just as they always do. And Cover 2 is precisely the right defense to use with the Eagles. The Pats will give up some yards in the air, but their safeties won’t fall for Donovan McNabb’s trick of scrambling, scrambling, scrambling, looking like he’ll run, then pulling up just shy of the line of scrimmage and completing the big pass. When they see McNabb scramble, they’ll fall back and trust the linebackers to do their jobs if McNabb decides to run. They might get burned a bit once or twice doing that, but it’s better than getting burned regularly (and seriously) by letting the Eagles receivers get behind them. The Pats also will concentrate on neutralizing Brian Westbrook, who can hurt you if you let him. The Pats run D is too good for Westbrook to have much of a game on the ground, so the trick will be to keep him from catching passes. And the way to do that is not to commit too much manpower to chasing down McNabb. Rushing four or five will get the job done vs. that Eagles O, and that’s just what the Pats will do.
I think the Eagles will keep it close through the first half. They’ll go into the second half trailing by three or four. Then, middle of the third quarter, when the Pats go up by 10 or 11, the Eagles will start trying to play catchup. They’ll get out of their game plan. McNabb, frustrated, will make some costly errors. The Eagles will turn the ball over twice. And the Pats will walk away with a 34-17 victory.
