Super Bowl Prediction: Packers over Steelers

Sure, Peter King and Madden 2011 have checked in already with picks for Pittsburgh. They have been countered by Eli the Orangutan and Jenny the Elephant, who couldn’t pass on the Pack. I’d count that as a draw that I need to break.

Brian Burke tells me that these teams are even, well, that is if you are one of those losers who can’t do math and rounds at the nearest hundredth decimal. I’ve got him down as in the bag for Pittsburgh, with their 0.5007 chance of winning. Football Outsiders did an exhaustive game preview of every facet of the game, and ultimately goes with a close Packers victory.

I was not any closer than before. My initial reaction was Green Bay, but I tried to take a Spock-like view. Was I letting my emotions interfere? Was that just because I had originally picked Green Bay to be in the Super Bowl, while I picked the Steelers to lose in the championship game before these playoffs began? (And yes, I am truly disturbed).

I’ll do a more detailed analysis for game day, but I ultimately decided that by the smallest of margins, I liked Green Bay because the Pouncey injury could impact offensive line cohesion, and the Packers could take advantage with their pressure. I also liked the potential of Green Bay to spread the field and have Rodgers execute a short passing game plan. It doesn’t hurt that Green Bay has been in every game this year.

So, I was fully prepared to go with that. Then Rick Reilly told me I had to root for the Packers, which caused me to question the meaning of life and whether everything I had ever represented was all wrong. Ultimately, I decided that Rick Reilly wasn’t going to ruin my pick. He can’t tell me who to root for, and he sure isn’t going to tell me who to pick. I’m my own man. And he sure as heck isn’t going to tell me to pick a normal score that doesn’t require some crazy combination of safeties, two point conversions, or enough field goals to make Marty Schottenheimer blush.

My pick: Green Bay 25, Pittsburgh 19

So see if you can top that. First person that correctly predicts the winner and score in the comments gets to pick an NFL topic, from a player or an issue or an interesting question of their choice, for me to write about in the offseason (subject to laws of decency, good taste, and coherence of course).

[photo via Getty]