Any doubt that professional football is America’s premier sport is squashed when you consider that any yahoo with a microphone, for example me, can make a Super Bowl prediction. Toss Peyton Manning, hot on the heels of football immortality, in with 2014 WFB Man of the Year nominee Richard Sherman, and a self-important game becomes even more self-obsessed.
Most years the Super Bowl earns its over-hype. Unfortunately, this year’s game is looking like the New Year’s Eve of Super Bowls. For all of the attention paid to and money poured into the game, New York in February is setting us all up for a night where we drink too much and end up passing out at 9:30.
A general rule of thumb for picking football games is to pick the squad with the best unit.
That unit is Seattle’s secondary. It is so good, they can allow their equally deadly front seven to wreak havoc on quarterbacks.
Throughout Manning’s career, anytime you can get a lick on him, he tends to slow down his lethal pace. Expect a defensive performance like Baltimore’s 2012 AFC Divisional Game, where the Ravens murdered Denver’s receivers to buy time for Flacco to pull the game out from under Manning.
My only concern is Russell Wilson. I’ve been a big fan of Wilson since the 2011 Wisconsin/UNLV game, when Wilson first displayed his talents, and showed he was on his way to becoming an elite college player and a very good pro one. But his performance in huge games hasn't matched his typical high level of play in an everyday contest.
But what makes the Seahawks formidable is Marshawn Lynch. The progenitor of BEASTMODE is a machine, and if he can pop long runs versus the 49ers impregnable defense, surely he'll be able to poke holes through Denver’s banged up front.
Seahawks, 34-24. Hence Sunday will bookmark the greatest week in Seattle history.
