Attention: It’s January, a sports month that always culminates in the biggest sporting event on the planet.
As a full-service sports column, The Answer usually prides itself on maintaining acute awareness of the space-time needs of the sporting universe, but this week its flat-out painful. The Super Bowl, this year, has the alure of the now-defunct Weed-Eater Independence Bowl. (For those of you who can’t relate to this analogy, we’ll try some sample SAT work: 2001 Super Bowl is to excitement as John Ashcroft is to liberal.)
Two weeks ago, as I watched the NFC Championship game, I cursed the football gods and begged them not to do it like that and put the Giants in the big game. As a Cowboys fan, I have a long-term dislike for the Giants, but this year the problem is much larger than simple divisional rivalry residue. New York has already had its moment: The Yankees won the World Series.
If another New York team wins a sporting championship, the consequences will be dire. We will all be in grave danger.
It’s bad enough when the kid wearing the Jeter jersey and the Giants cap won’t stop smack talking about how crappy the rest of the country is. If the Giants win, he’ll be right on.
For those of you still saying “Giants … today 8-4, tomorrow 8-8” or “they might be the worst top seed ever,” the Giants are one game away from being champion, and all I have to protect me is Trent Dilfer. Forgive this aside, but …
I need Jack Nicholson (on that wall). And late at night I thank God he’s on that wall. And for those of you that want the truth, here it is … Trent Dilfer is still really bad.
NFL pundits everywhere are talking about how washed up Troy Aikman is and that Drew Bledsoe won’t ever win a title because he isn’t a new-age mobile quarterback. Hello everyone. Ravens + Aikman = ‘94 Cowboys (still not as good as the ‘92 or ‘93 versions, but pretty solid). Ravens + Bledsoe would make me confident the Giants might finally lose.
Fortunately, I do have Ray Lewis on my side.
If Tiki Barber and Ron Dayne are Thunder and Lightning, Lewis is a global weather control system. Don’t count on much stormy weather.
The problem is that on the other side of the ball, the Giants have fatty Keith Hamilton clogging up the middle and Dallas native Jessie Armistead on the outside. Rookie Jamal Lewis hasn’t exactly run wild during the playoffs, so the odds of him breaking off any big plays against the Giants defense is also low.
If you’re sensing a pattern here, you’re on top of things. I don’t think there will be much scoring in this game.
And then there was the X factor, Mr. Dilfer himself. My guess is that Dilfer will complete more passes to Giant cornerback Jason Sehorn than to his own “star” wide receiver, Quadry “The Missile Doomed To Live In The Shadow Of His More Famous Brother, The Rocket” Ismail. His only hope is tight end Shannon Sharpe, which reminds me of something.
Does anyone else think it is odd that Sharpe and Sehorn, who starred in one of those Charles Schwab commercials (Sharpe: “You can’t even spell Dow Jones.”) together, are now both in the Super Bowl.
If you don’t see a conspiracy here, you probably believe there really was a lunar landing and that the CIA isn’t chemically controlling the water to make us easier to control.
So I won’t even bother with a prediction, you have to be on the Board of Charles Schwab to know the result in advance.
Oh and if any of you New Yorkers run into Mr. Schwab, tell him I’ll invest with him if he lets the Ravens win.)
