The Fan Five Super Bowl Preview Extravaganza

By now you've probably heard 17,235,871 different views on the Super Bowl and I'm sure you're thoroughly confused or simply exhausted by the media blitz the game is receiving. Fear not! The Fan Five is here to clear up the jargon and give you a pick you can('t) trust! If my picking record is any indication, and I think it speaks for itself, then simply read what I have to say, digest it, then pick the opposite and you'll be all set.

Playoff picks:
vs. the spread (1-9)
straight up (3-7)

I was 1-1 on the conference championship picks, largely because I missed the "obvious game" potential of the Cards-Eagles match. That is, I followed the sheep to the Eagles along with everyone else in the world, and this (as usual) turned out to be the wrong decision. I was 0-2 against the spread, again because of the Eagles pick and because of the Polamalu pick. That is, if Troy freaking Polamalu hadn't intercepted Joe Flacco's fourth quarter pass and returned it for a touchdown, I'd have been golden on that pick. But he did, and Pittsburgh covered. C'est la vie.

It's painfully obvious that I should not be a professional sports gambler after this mortifying postseason performance (ask the others in my pick 'em league and they'll tell you that this comes as no surprise...). However, it is my duty as a sports blogger to give you my take on the game, because that's the kind of hard working sportswriter I am! So here we go, Super Bowl XLIII (that's 43 for those of you that haven't been in 4th grade yet, or watched enough Rocky movies). As usual, odds are provided by Yahoo! Sports.

The Game: Pittsburgh Steelers (-7) vs. Arizona Cardinals
The Site: Tampa, Florida
The Time: Exactly 6:28 EST (according to ESPN)

The Take: As I said, my biggest failure of conference championship weekend was not recognizing the "obvious game" that was staring me right in the face. Not this time. Rarely does a Super Bowl come along that gets picked so consistently for one team. Last year, despite the New England Patriots opening as a 10-point favorite, many experts were jumping on the Giants bandwagon and, if not picking the G-men to win, at least picking them to cover. I have mentioned before that I was of that mindset as well. The last Super Bowl I can remember that had almost 100% of experts and fans alike favoring one team was the St. Louis "Greatest Show On Turf" Rams against the New England "Tuck Rule" Patriots in early 2002 (the 2001 season). Everyone liked the Rams in that game, myself included. So what happened? The Pats win their first of 3 Super Bowls in 4 seasons in one of the greatest Super Bowl upsets of all time.

Back to this year. The love is clearly with the Steelers, and it really surprises me that the line has not moved up from 7. A friend of mine even stated that he thought that it was ridiculous that the line was only 7 and said he couldn't fathom a scenario where the Steelers don't cover. Very strong statement, indeed, but this seems to be consistent thinking everywhere I look. This is terrifying if you think the Steelers are going to win, because it's games like these that have a tendency to go the exact opposite of what was expected.

In recent years, we have seen "parity" strike the NFL, and as ESPN.com's Bill Simmons writes, the NFL playoffs have become little more than March Madness for football. (The reason I put parity in quotes is that there's no real good excuse for this, and at times it has seemed more like mediocrity than so-called "parity.") In other words, it doesn't matter who the best team is during the regular season, it just matters who gets hot in January (as the Giants did last year, the Colts did the year before that, and the Cardinals did this year). In fact, many teams (including the three just listed) have practically reinvented themselves in some way in the playoffs, somehow becoming a completely different team from the one that played in the regular season. The Colts found their run defense in the playoffs after being historically bad in the regular season. The Giants figured out how to use their pass rush to help their poor secondary. The Cardinals also found their run defense and even figured out how to fit in some running plays on offense.

So what's my point in all this? Just because we think we know the teams from their 16-game regular seasons, doesn't mean those 16 games have anything to do with the one game about to be played this Sunday. We've also learned the true power of the "Nobody Believes In Us" philosophy. "Nobody Believes In Us" was the rallying cry of last year's Giants, of the Patriots in 2002, of the Tampa Bay Rays in baseball last year, of the Boston Celtics in the NBA last year, etc. And this is absolutely the focus of the Arizona Cardinals. The idea that it's "Us Against The World" somehow motivates players beyond the usual "Us Against The Other Team" mindset. I'm not a scientist, I don't know how the brain works, but this seems to be an irrefutable law of sports right now.

For the Steelers, things are different. 20 Steelers players have played in a Super Bowl before, many of them with the Steelers team that won in 2006 against the Seattle Seahawks. Only five Cardinals have played in a Super Bowl before, but their most important player (QB Kurt Warner) is among them. Is Super Bowl experience important? History is mixed on this question. There are numerous examples of veteran teams with Super Bowl experience winning, and there are plenty of examples of teams in their first trip pulling it off. If I had to take a side, I'd say it's nice but it's going to be low on the list of deciding factors. The Steelers biggest concern has to be the overconfidence trap, which is basically the opposite of the "Nobody Believes In Us" philosophy. It's the "Everybody Believes In Us" mentality, and it's dangerous because it can seriously affect a team's ability to be fully prepared. This killed the 18-0* Patriots last year as they seemed to treat the game very casually until the second half, and when they realized they needed to turn it on to avoid the stunning upset, it was too late and the Giants had gained tremendous confidence simply by hanging around.

This could certainly affect Pittsburgh. All the signs are there. The crowd will be like a home crowd (thus fueling the Cardinals' feelings of being up against the World). Remember, the Cards biggest, most convincing win of the postseason was on the road against 10-point favorite Carolina. Was that matchup so much different from this one? Frankly, no. The Steelers and Panthers have many striking similarities, and the Steelers do everything on defense that the Panthers did, they just do it much better. Could Ben Roethlisberger have a day to rival Jake Delhomme's historic implosion? Certainly. Roethlisberger was among the worst players on the field for the Steelers in their Super Bowl win in 2006, and he's all but admitted as much. A repeat performance is definitely possible.

Finally, the coaching matchup is quite interesting. As I'm sure you've now heard, the Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt was the offensive coordinator for the Steelers in their Super Bowl run and was basically passed over for the job of Steelers head coach when Bill Cowher retired the next season. So this will be a bit of a grudge match in that sense. Since Mike Tomlin, the Steelers current head coach, is more of a defensive guy, it stands to reason that the Steelers offensive schemes may still be very similar to what they ran two years ago, and with many of the players being the same, this should give the Cards coaching staff a lot to work with. I think there's a distinct advantage for the Cardinals when it comes to gameplanning for this game.

So how is it all going to turn out? My gut says that the Steelers are the better team, but what I've seen from the Cardinals this postseason has really impressed me. This would be a huge upset if the Cards could pull it off, obviously, and it would also cement Kurt Warner's legacy as an all-time great postseason quarterback. Looking at the quarterback matchup, I think I'd have to go with Warner over Roethlisberger in a close game, even though both have proved to be very clutch this year.

If I do the analysis that I used for the conference championship games, using the four-outcome method, there are three that I see as legitimate possibilities. I can see the Cards winning close, or the Steelers winning close or winning big. I really can't imagine a scenario where the Cardinals win the game in a blowout. Even if everything goes right for Arizona, I still think the Steelers defense will be good enough to keep the game close. But if everything goes right for Pittsburgh, or things go very wrong for Arizona, this could turn into a rout in no time. Still, I keep feeling like the Cardinals have figured something out in the playoffs and their pass-protection and defensive schemes are far batter than they were in the regular season, making a blowout seem much less likely.

The Pick: In the end, I'm going to go against my gut here and say the Cardinals "Shock The World" (this is their fans' mantra this postseason) and pull this one out 27-20. Sorry for the kiss of death, Cardinals fans.

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