CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES (NFL Update)

Well, I'm 4-1 on my picks against the spread, but the one was a doozy. Basically, I said the 2010-11 Patriots were the 1927 Yankees and, well, they weren't. They were more like the 1969 Seattle Pilots. (Or to put it another, more obscure, way: I said the Patriots were Secretariat and they turned out to be Jacques Who.) Shortly after the game concluded, I stepped into the backyard to ponder the question of how I could possibly have been so mistaken and whether my wife now would (or should!) leave me because I was so wrong, so very very wrong, about the Patriots. As I stood in the freezing wind, my tears crystallizing on my face, I could not help but address certain fundamental questions I have been avoiding for many years:

1) Have I lost it?
2) Did I ever have it?
3) Did I ever even know what “it” is?
4) Is it possible Bill Belichick is not the intellectual and spiritual equal of St. Thomas Aquinas?
5) Are the Jets really any good?

Suddenly, the forsythia bush in front of me burst into flames. Though I always seek, and welcome, the miraculous in life, I admit this surprised me. Over the crackling of the branches, a voice boomed out: “Michael,” it said, “you know NOTHING about football!”

So now it's official, I guess.

Nevertheless, I still have my numbers (and not much else). And based on that, I have to like the Steelers (-3 ½) against the Jets. We are talking here about (maybe) the 2nd best team in the NFL versus Mark Sanchez. I grant you that Sanchez just beat the (maybe) best team in the NFL, the Patriots, but that may well have been an any-given-Sunday kind of thing. Sanchez played well, but the Patriots dominated many of the offensive stats. In other words, my skepticism of the Jets is unabated. A team like this almost never gets to the Superbowl.

The Packers-Bears game is an easy choice as well. In the NFC, by my reckoning, the Packers were the best playoff team and the Bears were the worst.

In many ways, the Bears and the Jets are the same sort of team. They combine a medium-to-weak offense with a better-than-average defense, and hope to put themselves in close games where they can get lucky. This strategy can win games, but it rarely gets the ring.

Steelers. Packers.


Copyright2011MichaelKubacki