Super Bowl Countdown: On the Road to History

By now you think you've heard it all. You've seen the media coverage for two weeks, and you've had great in-depth analysis right here for the past five days. But you are still unsure of who is going to walk away victorious on Sunday. There is something that is holding you back from the Cardinals, but yet you aren't impressed by what Pittsburgh brings to the table either. I'm here to give you the last bit of information you need to push you one way or the other.

First, you have a lot going for you if you are the Cardinals. You have the Democrats on your side, one of, if not the best receivers in the league and his dad who is a long-time newspaper columnist, and a rejuvenated Super Bowl MVP and two-time MVP quarterback.

On the other hand, if you are the Steelers you have one of the league's best mascots, the best defense in the league this year with bone-crushing hitters, and a sound Super Bowl quarterback.

I wanted to look at previous Super Bowls and make my assessment on that, but then I realized that none of those Super Bowls might actually apply to Sunday's game. I mean, so what if I told you that teams that win 9 games or fewer are 2-2 in the Super Bowl (Cardinals: 9-7)? So what if you knew that teams with 12 wins have the most Super Bowl victories, 12 (Steelers: 12-4)?

Only three times in the Super Bowl era has a team with 3+ fewer wins than their opponent won the Super Bowl. (2007 Giants: 10-6 def. 16-0 Patriots; 2001 Patriots: 11-5 def. 14-2 Rams; 1957 Packers: 9-4-1 def. 13-1 Raiders).

You already know that the Steelers outscored their opponents by almost 8 points this season. Would you change your mind if I told you that the average margin of victory in the Super Bowl is over 15 points? But, in the past five years alone the Super Bowl winner has won by just over 6 points a game.

The Steelers have played in six Super Bowls, two of those were in Florida, much like this year. Pittsburgh is 2-0 when the Big Game is played in the Sunshine State and in their six Super Bowl games, they outscore their opponents by five points a game. Too irrelevant still?

What if we looked at the Steelers most recent Super Bowl victory. Three years ago the Steelers beat the Seahawks 21-10. Ben Roethlisberger had his worst game....ever. In 72 regular season games, and nine playoff games. Big Ben had his worst performance to date. That day in Detroit, Roethlisberger went 9-21, 123 yards, 0 TD, 2 INTs and a QB rating of 22.6. Things got so bad that the Steelers went to a different quarterback to throw the touchdowns that game as Antwaan Randle El completed a 43 yard pass to Hines Ward to seal the game. Which way are you leaning now?

Meanwhile, how about the last two Super Bowls that Kurt Warner has been in? Well he only set the record for most passing yards in a single Super Bowl and lead his team to a fourth quarter comeback, and saw his team give up a fourth quarter lead two years later.

You can't lose two of your last three games going into the playoffs and expect to be hot enough to win the Super Bowl much like the Cardinals are trying to do this year. Or you can't have the same amount or more turnovers on offense than your defense creates throughout the season and expect to win. Unless of course, you are last year's Giants team. Am I making sense yet?

I've always lived by numbers and logic. They can tell any story you want them to tell you. Stats are mostly of coincidence, unless you make them of value. I surround myself with printed sheets of Super Bowl history and pen markings. Which stats mean the most in this game? I'll give you a magic # for this game. Let's say it is '2'.

This year, Arizona is just 3-7 when committing 2 or more turnovers on offense. Pittsburgh is 2-4 when their offense coughs it up 2 or more times. The Cardinals are 7-0 when their team forces 2 or more turnovers while the Steelers are 8-1 in the regular season when they force the other team to give it up two or more times. So you look at that and say that the first team to give up 2 turnovers will lose the game.

I have to take the league's best defense in this situation. The Steelers will control the clock with the run while Warner will be forced to air it out more often. The problem is though, can the Steelers keep the Cardinals from the one or two big scoring plays? So how about this.

Prediction: A game decided by Jeff Reed missing a last-second field goal to win the game, thus sending it into overtime. In overtime, Kurt Warner throws an interception which is returned for a touchdown and a 26-20 Steelers victory.

How about that one for the stats book?

Related Posts by Subject