Fearless Super Bowl Prediction

On September 12, 2011, in what I hope is an annual tradition on this blog, I made my NFL predictions. 

Guess what?  I was wrong!

I predicted the 12 playoff teams, and the eventual Super Bowl XLVI winner.  Ha!  I hope nobody took my predictions to Las Vegas.  In the AFC I got three of six right (Steelers, Patriots, Ravens) and in the NFC four of six (Packers, Falcons, Lions and Giants).  I did correctly identify two of the four of the conference championship participants.  But I was wrong that the Ravens would win and the Giants would lose.  I predicted that the Ravens and the Packers would advance to SB 46, and that the Pack would win for the second straight time, 31-14. 

Let's try again.

So on the eve of Super Bowl Sunday (which the Vox Clara Commission of the Vatican is considering making a Feast in the new Roman Missal, complete with its own Collect ["Grant, we pray, O Lord of the pigskin, that our venerable faces may partake of guacamole and chips to our hearts content and not get heartburn as our beloved team loses in the fourth quarter..."], Preface ["... we give thanks for Bradshaw, Harris, and Bleier, Swann and Stallworth, Greene, Ham and Lambert, Noll and Cowher, Big Ben, Big Snack, the Bus, smiling Ward, scowling Harrison and little Troy with his Signs of the Cross..."] and Final Blessing ["I've just won the Super Bowl and I'm going to heaven!"]), I offer another prediction.

Each year that the Steelers are not in the Super Bowl I base my prediction on the team which is furthest from the Steelers' six SB rings.  (Which is why in the NFC championship game, with the 49ers the underdog despite being the home team, I rooted for the Giants.  The 49ers have five SB wins, and could have tied the Steelers for six.)  This year that calculation doesn't work.  Both the Patriots and the Giants have three rings.  So, on the basis that the Gronk's ankle will work enough for him to be a minimal threat to the Giant defense, that Brady won't have two lousy games in a row, and that Belichick will out-think Coughlin, I predict the Patriots over the Giants, 24-21, in the first overtime game in Super Bowl history.  For the fourth time the Patriots will win the Super Bowl by a margin of three points.

There.  Enjoy the game.  Better, enjoy the commercials and the hospitality of your hosts.  Go Steelers, next year!