The Predictabowl

It's that time of the year where football nuts find themselves twitching with anticipation, and where the rest of America begins to get a little too excited over advertisements. Yep, it's February and the Superbowl is just around the corner. The teams playing this year are somewhat more predictable than the last few years. The Saints were one of the last 2 teams to remain undefeated during the regular season. They won their first 13 games until falling into a 3 game losing streak after a loss in Dallas. In the AFC another team was seeing very similar results, the Indianapolis Colts. This Colts team started off 14-0 until they began resting their starters, crushing their fans dreams of a 16-0 season, but I imagine there's not a single person complaining in Indianapolis right now as Superbowl Sunday is just days away.

Both the Colts and Saints are very similar teams, they both rely on their extremely high powered offenses, with two of the greatest team leaders today at the helm. Both Peyton Manning and Drew Brees are two outstanding quarterbacks, both with close to 35 touchdowns and 4,500 yards on the season. Even more important than their abilities at Quarterback is their dedication to the team. Both of these players are the heart and soul of their team, both leaders on the field and in the locker room. These teams are by no means one-dimensional. Along with their great offensive attacks, the Colts and Saints both have quality defenses. In defense, the Colts have an edge, having an overall more solid defense. The Saints defense, while not as good as far as preventing yardage and scores, is a dangerous threat when it comes to ripping the ball away from the offense.

With these two elite football teams, anyone could have predicted months ago that these two teams would be in the Superbowl, and probably most people did. That's the thing, the end of this year has been completely predictable. The underdog Jets, with their rookie quarterback, Mark Sanchez, at the helm along with their... character of a coach (to say the least) were relentlessly fighting their way to the Superbowl. That is, until they were eliminated by the Colts in the AFC championship game, the same Colts who had led the AFC all season long. In the NFC, Brett Favre, a living legend in the football world was looking to have his "last hurrah". Instead of putting an exclamation point at the end of his career, he has once again created a question mark as it looks like we have another confusing off-season ahead of us filled with the retirement and un-retirement of Mr. Favre.

Even though it may have made a better story line (or at least would eliminate some confusion), New Orleans deserves this Sunday. The city who has been through so much in the last 5 years is finally seeing their NFL team make it to the Superbowl for the first time. The streets of New Orleans is filled with pride, accomplishment and chants of "Who Dat?". At the end of the day, I hope we hear about how Drew Brees and the Saints brought New Orleans their first championship instead of hearing Peyton Manning and Jim Caldwell talk endlessly about team work and dedication.

When it comes down to it, the Superbowl is about football, not stories. If I was more interested in the story lines behind the players than the actual athletic events, I'd watch professional wrestling. We wont be watching an exciting "David vs Goliath" type showdown such as the one we saw 2 years ago. We won't get to see an NFL great end his career on the most important game of the year. We will, however get to witness what is sure to be a great game between two top of the line teams. After all, why do we watch football? Do we watch it for the storylines, or for the, well, Football?