My Super Bowl Predictions

1. The crowd will be much more sedate than they are during the Conference Championship games. That's because, while there are some hometown fans for each team in the stands, a large percentage of the tickets go to various corporate types who don't want the crowd noise to get in the way of their deal-making. This is one of the reasons why the conference championships are so much better than the Super Bowl.

2. The halftime show will suck. I don't give a damn who is doing the halftime show, the very nature of the halftime show precludes entertainment. The people tuning in to watch the games, real football fans, usually use this time to cook food, head to the bathroom, read Finnegan's Wake, and try to keep their spirit of fannish-hostility up. Further, the venue is too big to be suitable for a concert. What you see from the stands are a lot of lights and colors and some tiny-iddy-biddy people who seem only loosely connected to the music that's playing. The people attending didn't come to see the band, which makes them more lethargic than concert crowds. The halftime concert is thus less interesting than concert footage of the same band. Also, the halftime show lengthens the game by forty-five minutes, spoiling its pace. Imagine if, during your favorite movie, someone spliced in an hour's worth of footage of a Paul McCartney and Wings concert. You'd string the projectionist up by his own film. Well, that's what they do to football fans every fucking year with the halftime show.

3. People will make way too big a deal of the commercials. What kind of idiot watches the Super Bowl to see the ads? You'd have to pay me salary and benefits to do a thing like that, but apparently people in this world exist who find in a new Doritos commercial a cause for celebration. It's that kind of stupidity that shows us who Madison Avenue really has by the balls.

4. PIttsburgh will win. Seattle has the talent to win on paper, but so did Indianapolis and Denver. The Steelers's 3-4 defense in the playoffs has been every bit as devastating as those boasted by the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the 2000 Baltimore Ravens. I don't think Alexander will be able to find the edge against this 3-4, and he's not a great between-the-tackles runner. I like Matt Hasselbeck a lot, but I expect the defense to force Seattle to become one-dimensional, and once that happens, Hasselbeck will be a target for Dick LeBeau's seemingly endless array of blitz packages. Big Ben will, once again, make the plays he needs to make, and take a step toward creating a new legend in Pennsylvania.

Pittsburgh 34; Seattle 17.