52 Weeks, 52 Books

We’re about 30 minutes or so from Super Bowl XLII with the New England Patriots chasing perfection and the New York Giants with their second chance at stopping them. Everyone seems to have a prediction for the game as it’s easily the single biggest sporting event in the world every year, and I’m not different. Frankly, there aren’t many surprises when it comes to my thoughts on how the game will play out. The Patriots struggled in four games, one was against an undefeated superpower similar to themselves (the Indianapolis Colts) while the other three were in cold weather (against Philly, Baltimore and the first meeting against New York). Today’s game in Arizona will be a climate controlled closed stadium meaning there won’t be any adverse weather to interfere with the Pats’ passing attack. That is bad news for the Giants.

I have thought a lot about the game and come up with a few scenarios in which the Giants could pull off the huge upset. Generally, these involve injuries and multiple turnovers for the Patriots, in other words, extremely special circumstances. Meanwhile, all things being equal, it is easy to envision a Patriots victory over and over again. The Giants have made it this far despite being predicted to lose in every game of the playoffs despite being given less of a chance with each passing game. Plaxico Burress pointed out how they lost to the Cowboys (twice) and the Packers in the regular season before beating them in the playoffs, so perhaps they can complete the trio with a win in the Super Bowl after the Week 17 loss to the Patriots.

I just can’t see it. In fact, I like the Patriots in a walk. I’m hoping for a great game that comes down to the wire as well as a great batch of commercials as the past few years have collectively been pretty awful, but I’m only holding my breath for the latter. Speaking of the commercials, the company I work for, Dell, is airing their first ever Super Bowl commercial scheduled to run right after the end of the first quarter. It’s based on our Red Campaign in support of the fight against AIDS. I look forward to it and hope to see some creative and humorous ones as well. But I digress… as for the game, my prediction of the Patriots to win big has me landing on the final score at:

Patriots: 45
Giants: 21