Super Bowl PICKS
* Normally, I pick four “best bets” and make one of those a “lock” each week. Since there is only one game, it’s both a best bet and a lock.
Denver (-2.5) vs. Seattle
Sometimes, it really is as simple as it seems. All season long, we’ve all been making boatloads of money on Seattle at home and fading them on the road. While the Meadowlands site is of course technically a neutral site, methinks this will have much more of a road game feel than the whole twelfth man thing they usually have going on. The Seahawks just aren’t the same team when they’re not in that building. There are a few other items to keep in mind here as well. Seattle has a very, very good defense. That being said, it’s not legendary. Nobody is confusing this unit with the 85 Bears or 00 Ravens. This is being billed as an amazing offense versus an amazing defense. But really what it is, is an all-time offense against the team that happened to be ranked first defensively. Seattle didn’t blow out the rest of the league in terms of defensive metrics. So let’s not pretend like this is strength versus strength in those terms.
I will grant that Manning against the Seattle secondary is an exciting matchup of powerhouses, but Manning is so far above and beyond everyone else that even the powerhouse matchup is a bit one-sided. But the matchup that will make or break this game for Denver will actually be Russell Wilson against the Denver secondary. If Wilson is able to move the ball through the air, Seattle will be in this game. And if they’re in the game late, they probably win. Not sure what it is, maybe it’s the record-breaking offense against the upstart defense, but this game has a very 1999 Rams/Titans Super Bowl feel to it for me.
And above all this, the comparisons and the hype and the storylines and the weather (which is looking like it’ll be just as nice as any warm-weather climate, but I digress). But above all that noise is the legacy of one Peyton Manning. Is he going to stake his claim to be the greatest of all-time? Last time he was up for that, he got upstaged by a New Orleans team of destiny. Or will he instead by like Philip Rivers, a player with phenomenal Hall of Fame caliber stats but even more importantly, wins multiple Super Bowls (side note: I’m of course referring to the Super Bowls Rivers is about to win). And then there’s MY legacy. For far too long, The Profit was a place you came for a few laughs and a way to avoid all the intricate and exciting statistical breakdown and analysis on the rest of the site. But this year, we actually made a little bit of money. Well, maybe not “we”. Anybody who saw my record getting better and better as the year went on likely wouldn’t have had enough time to build any kind of trust in me. But at least I made some money, and really – not gonna lie, that’s all I’m concerned with! And with this being the second straight year I picked the Super Bowl participants in preseason, I finally have something to brag about. Because in addition to that, we have a chance to top 50% on best bets if I can nail this one too. So while I’ll be watching the game and thinking about Peyton’s legacy, there’s a lot more at stake here than some quarterback’s rep.
So now we have our battle lines drawn. When it comes to offense versus defense, I’ll give you that it seems like defense comes out victorious (even though that may not even be the case). But when it’s “good” against “all-time”, good loses because good is dumb. And with me now pseudo-quoting Spaceballs, it’s about time to put a bow on this one. See y’all in the fall!
LOCK: Denver Broncos
RECORD
LAST WEEK
Overall:2-0 (100%)
Best Bets: 1-0 (100%)
Lock of the Week: 1-0
YEAR TO DATE
Overall: 146-116 (55%)
Best Bets: 39-39 (50%)
Lock of the Week: 13-7 (65%)
