We Predict the Outcome of Super Bowl LX

I made everybody wait for this because I talked a little bit about my prediction at the beginning of the show.

Real quick.

Another, another story to just highlight my abysmal past with predictions, OK?

I'm talking about, I mushed the Panthers, I mushed the Patriots.

I predicted Chad Ochocinco to win when he didn't even play.

One year, I got kind of mad at Julian Edelman at the podium because he like dismissed the question.

So my bold prediction for the Super Bowl was that he was gonna muff a punt that ruined like the Super Bowl for the Patriots, and then he caught the game-winning touchdown pass.

So, OK, so that would have been the one against Seahawks.

So, OK, I was thinking about the one where he caught the one off his shoelaces, yeah.

Literally every Super Bowl prediction that I've ever made has been laughably wrong.

Mine is 17-16 Patriots, Robert Spillane MVP, returning a 91 yard fumble for a touchdown.

What say you?

Let's go on the record here.

Mine was 23-20.

Um, our editor Mitch makes us do bold predictions, which I hate, um, but.

Because of what's bold, um, and what's not, uh, but my bold prediction was Jackson Smith Njigba is going to tie the NFL record for receptions by a wideout in the Super Bowl, which I believe is 13 by Demaryius Thomas.

Um, James White had 14, but he's a running back.

So that's right.

Was that the Falcons, the 28-3 game that James White had 14 ?

Yes, yeah, yep, yep, that's right.

He came back and they threw him out of the backfield nonstop because they were having trouble blocking him and it wound up getting the Falcons to back off a little bit.

Um, yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I think.

I, I like, I see the Seahawks winning a close game.

Um, I, I think Sam Darnold is a different player, uh, and I think people have been waiting forever for the other shoe to drop like it did at the end of last year.

But to me, like maybe the most instructive game and where he's changed and how he's grown was the first Rams game.

And that's the one that the Seahawks lost.

He turned the ball over, I believe, 4 times in that game.

And still give him a chance to win in the end.

And not that that was any sort of model performance, but I think what it showed you was he's in a spot now where even when things go wrong, he's not crumbling, you know, and I think in the past we used to see that where one thing would lead to another thing, would lead to another thing, and the whole thing would come undone.

Um, and it's getting to the point now, Connor, where it feels to me at least like.

This is who he is.

It's 2 years in a row, 14 wins each year.

Yes, you had the performance against the Lions at the end of last year.

Yes, you had the performance against the Rams.

People stripped out of its context, which is the Vikings offensive line was seriously deficient.

Their left tackle was hurt.

Um, and so I, I do, I think Sam Darnold is going to win the MVP and throw for 350 yards?

No, but I think he's going to play well enough, and I think, He just needs to play well for the Seahawks to win.

I think Drake May needs to play great.

He needs to have an exceptional game for, for the Patriots to win.

And to me that's the difference.

It's like, I think if you're asking less of your quarterback, typically on this sort of stage, you wind up getting more out of him.

I think as we close this out, my, and I'm curious if you agree with this, my, my closing thought on this, and it's weird because it's not a marquee quarterback Super Bowl, but at the same time, I've thought this about marquee quarterback Super Bowls, and I don't think it about this one.

I don't think this is a game where either of the two of them, for lack of a better word, like poops of pants, right?

You know, and, and we've seen games like that where And, and, and it wasn't exactly what happened to Jared Goff, but do you remember the 13 to 3 Super Bowl, and you remember talking to people who were down on the field and they were like, he looks like he's about to get hit with an anvil, you know, and, and, and who could blame him, right ?

I mean, this is, you're seeing a Bill Belichick defense live.

He just crafted something.

To beat everything that you do.

It sucks.

Like, it's a worst-case scenario.

But even before the game, I think that there are some very real nerves there.

And I'm not saying any of these guys are, it's, it's good, bad, and different.

Like we all process things in a different way, but just who we've seen Drake to be to this point, who we've seen Sam Darnold become, I don't think that either of them are going to feel the weight of the world on their shoulders, and I don't think either of them are going to play like that either, you know.

I, I think they, I think they're both coached and deployed in a certain way.

That's exactly it.

That's exactly.

They're just, it's.

The teams are well rounded.

The teams have multiple ways to win.

There was a time earlier in the season where it looked like Drake was carrying the team, and there's probably some truth in that.

But what we saw more recently from the Patriots in the playoffs is a team that can win the way that I think a lot of us expected they would have to win at the beginning of the year, which was leaning on the run game, playing great defense, and then, you know, getting plays from Drake when they needed them.

And so their ability to win that way is important.

Again, like with the Seahawks, it's sort of the same thing.

I mean, I, that offense is designed and has always been designed to get the quarterback playing fast and free.

And, um, it becomes harder when you're in long yardage, which is one of the reasons I, that's why I think that's such a big deal is like how often are they in call it 3rd and 7th plus, right?

Um.

You know, but, but, but the The weight of winning the game isn't gonna be on Sam Darnold's shoulders the same way, the same way you might like the weight of winning last year's Super Bowl for the Chiefs was on Patrick Mahomes, and I don't think that that way for either quarterback this year, which is a credit to how both those teams have been built.

The year before that, the weight of that Super Bowl where the two years ago when the Eagles lost to the Chiefs, the weight of that Super Bowl was on Jalen Hurts, right?

He needed to throw.

30 times and needed to not make mistakes.

He played really well, played well, but he made mistakes, right?

And I think both of these teams know that they can play to something else like the quarterback has a backstop, which I think is kind of nice, right ?

It puts more onus on the coaches, the schematics of it, and that's the kind of Super Bowl that I like to watch.

I mean, I, I, I think it's, it's a fascinating matchup.

It's gonna be fun.

Everyone who thinks this game is going to suck, you suck.

That's what I would say.

Well.

I mean, it's, it's the drive-by viewer who was watching for Taylor Swift the last few years, um, that they, they're probably gonna be lost, um, but they have a new way of measuring television ratings now which I think has made the ratings bigger across the board for everything.

So the NFL might do that with our views on this podcast to make it, it is interesting that that changed.

This is another thing like where everything comes up NFL, you know what I mean, like where.

Like the year that they have probably the least curb appeal in a Super Bowl matchup, they get to change in the way the ratings are measured, so they'll probably still break record.

Do they count like unborn babies if moms are pregnant and they're like that baby's technically watching it's like a new way of like incorporating streaming into it where the numbers gonna, it's just, it's different.