After more than 5 glorious months, the American football season officially concludes today, Super Bowl Sunday. The NFL really has the right balance between the regular season and the playoffs with 12 of 32 teams qualifying for post season play. Today’s matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers is a classic contest between two of the NFL’s most successful teams. Each team is defined by a strong work ethic and a blue collar mentality, has a well respected head coach, and a top notch quarterback.
Big Ben Roethlisberger has already led the Steelers to two championships and if Pittsburgh wins today, it will be hard to not consider Ben as one of the league’s elite QBs. Aaron Rodgers of Green Bay has a compelling story. He was the guy at the 2005 draft whose stock fell and was the last player left in the waiting room as ESPN chronicled his anxiety. Of course being picked by Green Bay and sitting behind Brett Favre for several years prepared him well for his opportunity to start three seasons ago. Rodgers is the hottest quarterback in football right now and his post season play has been outstanding. Does anyone now think the Packers made the wrong decision three years ago when they refused to take Brett Favre back from his first retirement change of heart?
The Packers learned from the San Francisco 49ers who made a similar decision in 1993 when they traded Joe Montana to the Kansas City Chiefs and handed the ball to Steve Young. Like Favre, Montana stayed too long past his prime and ended his career awkwardly with another team. Young rewarded the 49ers with a Super Bowl victory following the 1994 season. I’m rooting for Rodgers to do the same tonight.
One improvement that the NFL can make for next year is to cancel the Pro Bowl. I watched about 10 minutes of this farce of an all star game last weekend and the teams may have well as been playing touch football. I really can’t blame the players from being contact averse after the long season, but a game with the lack of intensity as the Pro Bowl should not be played. As long as I’m dispensing advice, I hope the talk of an 18 game regular season ends. The Super Bowl is now played in February not January like it was traditionally, and the 16 game season is long enough. Unlike the NBA and the NHL which have meaningless regular seasons, the NFL has a great format right now and doesn’t need to fix what isn’t broken.
Enjoy the Super Bowl tonight. I’m predicting a 24-20 win for the Packers.
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