The all important preview of the game:
Well the regular season is finally over. The two Super Bowl Bowl Champion contenders have fought their way to Glendale, AZ. Suprise! If anyone cares to remember, I picked the New England Patriots to face the defending Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks, in my pre-season predictions. The outcome may be the same, but the season certainly didn’t quite play out the way I said it would. I stand by my pick that the Seahawks will repeat as the victors.
[Recap of my 2014 Season Predictions]
The Patriots are a much tougher opponent than the Denver Broncos were last year. They match-up more evenly. The Broncos relied too heavily upon Peyton Manning’s passing prowess and on-field intelligence to lead them to victory in Super Bowl XLVIII (48). Many times throughout the last several seasons the NFL has been billed as a passing league, which is mostly true. However ,as exemplified by the Patriots and Seahawks, you need a well rounded team to have a chance. A strong passing game can only take a team so far. A respectable run game and better than average defense are necessary to truly compete for the Lombardi Trophy. The main reason these two teams are in the Super Bowl is because they have two of the league’s best coaches. Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick both know how and when to leverage their talent pool on offense and defense. A good number of the impact players from each roster were undervalued before they were picked up by the teams. The perfect examples of this are Tom Brady and Russell Wilson who were taken in the sixth and third rounds respectively.
At the beginning of the season I predicted the Seattle Seahawks would beat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. I still strongly believe that is the case, but the Patriots really are going to be a tough team to beat. The offense of the Patriots presents a very challenging match-up for the Seahawks defense. The coveted Legion of Boom will be busy all night keeping Rob Grownkowski and the rest of the receiving core in check especially with Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas III, and Kam Chancellor on the injury report. I sure hope Bill Belichick has been saving Jonas Gray as a secret weapon to use just for the Super Bowl (and not actually leaving him benched for pretty much the whole season after a stellar 201 yard 4 touchdown game just because he was late to a practice). The Chargers and Cowboys showed that the Seahawks can be beaten just by eating up the time of possession. LeGarrette Blount and Jonas Gray could potentially combine to be a knockout tandem. The Seahawks will be ready for Brady and Gronk, and all their offensive schemes. The Seahawks offense should have a much easier time in this game as long as they go back to their run -first formula that has won them so many games. Their wide recievers are negligible and will likely do just enough to keep things busy at Revis Island. They must ground and pound with Marshawn Lynch a.k.a. Beast Mode, which will open up the play-action run and pass game for Russell Wilson who has proven to be very dangerous when he flushes out of the passing pocket.
F.E.A.T. Life 