My Super Bowl Prediction

Let's take a look at a couple things before I announce this:

1) The league, this year, has been about points, Points, and MORE POINTS...

2) The only real angle I can see about having the Giants in this is to reprise Spygatebowl -- in fact, the official Bud Light tagline on their banners in one of the bars I walked past to go to lunch this afternoon: "Here We Go Again".

(Now, if we could get an 80's-era Tawny Kitaen... Oh, wait... That's "Here _I_ Go Again"...)

3) What I said last night: All four previous Brady-era New England Super Bowls have been decided by precisely three points. Right now, the money seems to be coming in on the Giants' side of the equation, and many books now have the line at NE -2.5.

4) And remember how much people are paying for the adspace this year: $3.5 million for a 30-second ad.

5) And let's also understand that the playoffs have featured two overtime games, and three more games in which the margin of victory was seven or fewer points.

All that in mind, here's my prediction for Super Bowl XLVI:

The game goes over the 54.5 -- BIG. This, to me, would be about the only real play I'd make on the game. I realize that this just begs for a Vegas squeeze and the game end something like 24-21, but I just don't see it. This league has been pushing the QB's and the passing game down our throats this year. The Patriots' defense sucks, and we know from the first Packer-Giant game that a great offense can score on the Giants.

The second thing: With all the money on the commercials and the like (and trying to get the game exclusively to legal outlets -- the US just shut down 16 Internet streaming sites which illegally streamed professional sporting and pay-per-view events.), there's little to no chance that we aren't staring another close game in the face so that people can see Melanie Amaro and a Pepsi commercial which, end of the day, probably cost about $12-15 million.

I think we are looking at the first-ever Super Bowl OVERTIME.

Finally, who wins? Well, let's be honest here: The only reason the Patriots didn't go 19-0 is because the Boston Globe blew the lid off of Spygate one week before Super Bowl XLII -- and it would appear that this is payback. Also, with Tom Brady probably getting near the end of his career, to get him a fourth Super Bowl would put him on that pantheon with Bradshaw and Montana. (Rightly or wrongly, it would.)

Also, there is the concept that Vegas would have to pay 100-1 odds to any New York Giant fans who took them to win the Super Bowl after they were 6-6 about eight weeks ago.

So, my prediction is that New England wins, by three points, and in overtime:

New England 38
New York Giants 35

Overtime.

MVP: Tom Brady