So I figured since It’s been awhile since I posted something on this blog I should probably say something today about this game that’s going on today. In case you didn’t hear, there’s kind of this important game played ever year called the Super Bowl. It’s the NFL championship and every year it seams to break viewership records. It’s kind of a big deal.

So this year we have the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers squaring off against each other, which seems a little odd to me for this season. I mean, this year has been filled with talk about how there’s so much parity in the league and so many people being  shocked about teams like the Chiefs and Buccaneers.

Now with the Super Bowl we have two teams that a lot of people seemed to be picking to make it to the big game. The Packers entered the beginning of the season as the hot pick for everyone, but then they started getting a bunch of injuries and had a few unlucky breaks and many started jumping off the Packer bandwagon. The Steelers were in a little bit of different boat as people didn’t necessarily trust them in the beginning of the year, but the general consensus seemed to be that if they could make it through the 4 games that Roethlisberger was suspended for with a 2-2 record, they were a dangerous team.

Yeah, um ... not so much.

My real point is, that, maybe, the unpredictability of the NFL season is really a façade for how predictable the league almost always turns out in the end. What was really different about this year than every other year? The Texans failed to live up to the preseason hype? Nope. That stayed the same. The Chargers suffered at the beginning of the season and came on in the second half? That didn’t change either (although they didn’t make the playoffs this time). The NFC West was terrible? That’s been true for almost a decade now.(If you want to come up with things that actually did change so I can argue against you, leave it in the comments section of this post).

Those are just a few examples of why the league really hasn’t changed as much as people think over the years. And now, we have possibly the two most storied franchises in the NFL battling in the 45th Super Bowl today.

Now, most people seem to be picking the Packers to win this thing, which makes me fear that the Steelers are going to come away with a victory. However, I’m not going to pick that at all. I feel that many people are coming up with reasons that Green Bay will win this game because the Packers are the clear team that everybody actually wants to win the game. The Steelers are the clear villain in this match-up, and the better story would come into the picture if the Packers would win this year.

I found this picture of Aaron Rodgers with a mustache and decided it had to be in this post.

The story I’m talking about is the completion of the 3 year Brett Favre debacle (yes, I know I’m talking about Brett Favre and I assure you I’m not too happy about it either, but this has to be mentioned). We had Favre messing with the Packer  franchise for a couple of years with the will he or won’t he retire situation. The Packers, rightfully so, became fed up with this and decided to get rid of Favre and move along with their 1st round pick Aaron Rodgers, who handled his fall in the draft and the whole Favre thing with class. So let’s take a brief look at how the three years went that led up to this current Super Bowl.

The first year, Brett Favre joins the Jets. He goes 9-7 and doesn’t make the playoffs, having an okay season. The Packers, with Aaron Rodgers, go 6-10. That’s a rough start to this whole thing and the win that year went to Favre. The second year, last year, Favre goes to the Vikings (the Packers next door neighbor and long time rival). He has his best season ever and gets one play away from being in the Superbowl (People who say they should have made it, stop it. Pass protection is part of the game, and the Vikings didn’t do a very good job of it).  Aaron Rodgers and the Packers made it the playoffs, but were knocked out in the wild-card round by the defending NFC champion Cardinals. This season the win again went to Favre. This year, I think we all know what happened. Brett Favre threw a lot of interceptions, “allegedly” exposed himself via sexting to Jenn Sterger, and ended his season with an injury that ended his incredible consecutive games streak.

Aaron Rodgers may have already won this year against Favre, but a Super Bowl victory would be a great signifier of the end of the Brett Favre era in the NFL and would help to allow people to move on from the whole debacle that was the Favre situation the past three years. If I could think of a movie situation to compare it to it would probably be like Darth Vader overcoming the Emperor dude in Star Wars. Aaron Rodgers is finally going to throw Brett Favre down a deep hole. Only Rodgers isn’t going to have his face melted with electricity from Brett Favre’s hands. In other words, much like Anakin Skywalker brings balance to the force, Aaron Rodgers can bring balance to the NFL, that has been ruled for 3 years by countless stories of Brett Favre.

There’s really no story if the Steelers win, except maybe we have to hear about Ben Roethlisberger overcoming his stupid decisions that he’s made. I don’t want to hear about that anymore. Oh yeah, we’ll probably also hear James Harrison complain more about how the NFL is changing the rules about hits, even though they didn’t change anything. They just started to enforce a rule that was already there. I guess we could also hear more about how under-appreciated Hines Ward is, even though he seems to whine about everything like the rest of the Steelers team does. The only saving grace of the Steelers team is Brett Keisel’s beard. That thing is ridiculous! The only way I would have wanted the Steelers to win the Super Bowl, is if they were playing Mike Martz and the Bears (I had to get one more shot in at Mike Martz and that was the only way I could think of to do it).

So I guess now I’ll go ahead and make a pick. Note that this pick is completely emotional because I can’t pick for a team that I want to lose so badly, another reason why I would be terrible at betting on games (aside from the fact that my picks are awful). Even though I’m terrified since every expert out there seems to be picking the Packers in a close game and that probably means the Steelers will dominate them, I’m still going to pick the Packers to win in a semi-close game.

Green Bay Packers 34,   Pittsburgh Steelers 27.

Alright. That should be my last post about football for awhile, unless something crazy happens. As always, comments are welcome. Enjoy the game!