My official pick for winner of SB49 is Seattle. I just think they are going to win it. I think they have the right combination of stifling defense and ball control offense to make it work. The Hawks offense isn’t going to play as badly as they did against Green Bay, Russell doesn’t screw up like that with any regularity.

However I don’t see it being the boring blowout of last season. Brady and the Pats are playing with something to prove. They’ve turned this whole season into a chip on their shoulder sort of thing after the Chiefs game, which is kind of ludicrous when you think about it. It’s gotten even bigger with the addition of Deflate Gate. But I haven’t seen the Pats play with a chip on their shoulder like this since the early years with Brady, when they did win Super Bowls. This feels like a stronger team than 2011, mentally and talentwise.

The thing about the Pats is you gotta play pretty damn perfectly to win no matter what. The Patriots almost never have an “off” day (Chiefs game was the rare example) and that means you need your A-game to win. I have no doubt Seattle can bring it, but they cannot let themselves get too cocky. The Patriots are not last year’s Broncos. They aren’t a paper tiger who beat up a cupcake schedule with no defense and got everyone to drink the kool-aid. They don’t have a dumb overly conservative coach like John Fox. If Seattle can’t get their offense going and keeps giving the ball to Brady, the Pats are going to be put in good position.

I don’t like predicting scores, that always seemed dumb to me. I pick Seattle in a close one. I’ve sort of lost any personal rooting interest. The last two weeks have been some of the worst weeks of football media I can remember. We didn’t get anything about the matchup, it was just 1 week of saggy balls followed by 1 week of MARSHAWN LYNCH WONT TALK. It was awful. I now hate everything about both these teams and can’t find any reason to root for either. Lets hope for a good game so it can end on a high note before the dry season.