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NFL Picks: The Super Bowl of football games

Thank God for Brett Keisel’s beard

 

Final numbers for 2010-11:

Scott Feschuk Playoffs 8-3 Overall 137-105-9

Scott Reid Playoffs 4-7 Overall 116-126-9

Thanks to all at Macleans.ca and Sportsnet.ca for reading us during our most popular season yet. Will the NFL be back in the fall? Will we? Will Alex Rodriguez ever live down being fed popcorn by his girlfriend on live television in front of 100 million people? Only time can answer these questions, except for the A-Rod one, because obviously the answer there is no.

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Pittsburgh (plus 3) vs. Green Bay, Sunday, 6:29 p.m. ET

 

Reid: Top three undeniable facts about Super Bowl XLV:

1. Sports Reporters Are Pussies. So far the most reportable item from the 2011 Super Bowl appears to be that it’s very coldy woldy. We had to spend days listening to ESPN’s Mike and Mike wussy aloud about how cold it was broadcasting outside until they finally moved their show indoors. And it seems every other reporter in Dallas assumes what the football-loving public wants to learn first is how they’re all holding up in the frigid air of north Texas. Yo candy apples, it’s barely dropped below freezing. Grow a pair!

2. There are Not Enough Slutty Women in Texas. In what would constitute a crisis in any circumstance, an embarrassing shortage of prostitutes in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area during the Super Bowl may irreparably damage the city’s reputation among hard-up pigs. It is estimated that 10,000 hookers are needed to satisfy the drunken demands of fat corporate slobs who, left to their own charms, couldn’t pick up a slice of pizza. Dallas currently has less than half this number of ladies of the evening (not mention ladies of the afternoon, the late morning, the early morning and the Warren Sapp). In response, the Dallas mayor has been forced to implement emergency measures: Free tickets for Charlie Sheen and ‘friends’.

3. Ben Roethlisberger is Still a Total Dick. An endless stream of stories this week have praised Big Ben for his newfound maturity and heartwarming efforts to become a better person. Crap to that! Has anyone heard Ben say, “Sorry for all the sexual assaulting I’ve been doing?” No. And you’re not going to. That’s because the only thing that’s really changed is the need for media to rationalize why they’re going to spend this whole week treating him like royalty. Justifying that requires a new narrative. The “Ben Has Grown Up” narrative. It will immediately take its place next to similar celebrity rebrandings such as: “Kobe Was Never Convicted,” “Floyd Landis is a Jealous Blabbermouthing Liar” and “Travolta: Straight as They Come.”

Overall, this has been the most boring Super Bowl Week in memory. There are no genuinely interesting storylines. No foot-lusting coaches. No star quarterbacks who like to photograph their happy salmons. Thank God for Brett Keisel’s beard.

Although I still like Travolta’s best.

Fortunately, there will be a game and it looks to be pretty entertaining. On that front, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I think the Pittsburgh Steelers outmatch the Green Bay Packers by a wide margin. They are faster, nastier and, what with all that black they wear, quite a bit slimmer. The good news is that what I think is always wrong. I’ve spent this entire season – some 250 games – proving that I know very little about football, or how to get Katy Perry to poke me back on Facebook. So rejoice Pack fanatics, victory is nigh! Pick: Pittsburgh Steelers.

 

Feschuk: Reid is right – how can you people think about football at a time like the Super Bowl? Have you not read the stories of valour and bravery from north Texas? Are you not aware of the HARDSHIP and SUFFERING being endured by members of media, who have been subjected to horrible injustices such as wind and having their corporate golf junkets cancelled? Reading their harrowing dispatches from the front lines, it’s clear that these reporters are pretty much exactly like the pro-democracy protesters in Egypt, except even more courageous because some of them forgot to bring warm socks. WE STAND WITH YOU, HEROES!

Then again, the reporters had to write about something, and there are only so many times you can go on about Aaron Rodgers’ talent or interview the family of gypsies that lives in Brett Keisel’s beard. One news outlet in New Hampshire was so desperate that it actually ran a story about a local man who has the same name as Packers coach Mike McCarthy. Think about that. Think about how hard-up for a remotely engaging Super Bowl story the editor must have been to say out loud, “There’s someone else on this planet with the name Mike McCarthy?? AND HE LIVES HERE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE???? To the newsmobile!!!

I propose that next year we make sure Rex Ryan coaches in the Super Bowl, even if his team doesn’t make it. That’s something we can all enjoy. Sorry, Mike McCarthy, I know your team went 16-0 and easily won two playoff games to make it to Super Bowl XLVI, but you’re about as interesting as Brooklyn Decker in a parka. Rex will take the Packers from here. Only he can be relied on to say something he’ll regret for the rest of his life, but that will make these two interminable weeks marginally more interesting for us.

Luckily for you, I don’t know how to photoshop.

As for the competition on Sunday, I think the signals are pretty clear that we’re in for quite a legendary tussle between two formidable competitors: Pepsi Max and Dorito’s. Plus Justin Bieber will appear in a Best Buy commercial and Kim Kardashian will promote Skechers. Both of these ads should be required to carry subtitles that explain them to future generations: This woman was briefly famous because she had a big bum and one of her sisters was the last known American sasquatch.

 

As for the boy, this is how your Earth President Bieber got his start.

By the way, have you seen the new ad from Volkswagen that’s going to air during the Super Bowl? It’s terrific. Watch the kid’s reaction near the very end of the commercial, when he turns toward the house – that’s better acting than the best acting Ashton Kutcher has ever done in his entire life, and the kid does it wearing a mask. (Whereas Kutcher does all his acting wearing a smirk.)

I’m going to be rooting for Green Bay in this game – mostly because Ben Roethlisberger is just a horrible, horrible person, but also because I can’t see how the Steelers’ secondary is going to stop Rodgers from throwing for 350 yards, or how their banged-up offensive line is going to stop Clay Matthews from hanging off Big Ben like a pair of fuzzy dice. Packers by 10 or more. IT IS SO DECREED. Pick: Green Bay Packers.

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