NFL: Ponderings On Super Bowl XXXV

By Stephen Baker CPKSports Senior Writer

The Super Bowl is perhaps the most overblown, over-analyzed, and downright obnoxious game on the American sports calendar. Every writer in the country feels the need to add to the cacophony of shrill voices. I am no better, so let me add my screech to the chorus.

You can’t surf the net for 10 seconds without coming across some story whining about the lack of a marquee matchup. While it is true this is the second consecutive Super Bowl with two teams who did not even qualify for the playoffs the year before, neither team is a lightweight. The Giants secured homefield advantage throughout the NFC playoffs by virtue of their conference best 12-4 record. The Ravens, admittedly a wild card team, posted the very same 12-4 record and are now riding a ten-game winning streak into the big game.

In fact, the Ravens might possess one of the most impressive rosters of a Super Bowl team in recent years. They have two sure-fire Hall of Famers in Rod Woodson and Shannon Sharpe, as well as a likely Canton inductee in Ben Coates. Jonathan Ogden has never ended a season without a trip to Hawaii for the Pro bowl, and Ray Lewis is working on a resume that could put him in the elite company of Nitschke and Butkus.

The Ravens’ defense gets high praise from even the most adversarial observers. Much has been made of the Ravens five games in a row without an offensive touchdown. The Ravens record in those games? 2-3. Name another team in NFL history which could nearly win half of their games with such a pathetic offensive display. The 1985 Bears?

In a supposedly offense-dominated era, the Ravens set an NFL record for fewest points allowed. They haven’t allowed a 100-yard rusher in 36 consecutive contests. In fact, they have only allowed 192 yards on the ground in their three playoff games combined. But wait! Didn’t the Ravens play a soft schedule, isn’t that record is surely tainted by the quality of opponent?

Well, when it mattered most, the defense kicked into overdrive. Get a load of the rankings of the offenses that the Ravens defense humiliated in the playoffs: The Broncos at #2, the Titans at #14, and the Raiders at #6. In 180 minutes of football, these vaunted offenses scored a grand total of 16 points. Only the Titans managed to reach the end zone. Friends, you don’t need me to tell you that is really, really good.

And now Kerry Collins and Tiki Barber are supposed to strike fear in the Ravens. In your heart of hearts, do you honestly think the Giants can put up 10 points on the Ravens? Seriously. Sure, they scored 41 points against one of the worst defenses in the NFL, but the Giants don’t have the Raiders’ offensive capabilities, and they looked completely lost against the relentless fury of Ray Lewis and company.

When Rich Gannon went down with a separated shoulder from a questionable hit by Tony Siragusa midway through the second quarter, the Raiders had 26 yards of total offense. They had four punts, two turnovers, and zero first downs. Had Gannon stayed healthy, would the Raiders have fared any better? He was doing such a bang-up job when he was healthy. Heck, it was poetic justice to see Oakland fans complaining about the injury to Gannon after they spent a week bragging about how their defense had knocked eight starting QB’s out of the game. Turnabout is fair play.

Frankly, the only reason people aren’t predicting a Ravens rout is because of one man: Trent Dilfer. Perhaps the most maligned 10-1 starter in NFL history, Dilfer seems to give other teams hope. Don’t worry, TD will screw it up. Before Dilfer stepped into the starting job, the Ravens averaged 15.5 points per game, and that’s with 39 point and a 37 point efforts against the Jags and the Bengals respectively in the first two weeks. Without those two games, the average dips to 9.1 points per game. Since Dilfer took the reigns, the Ravens average 22.2 points per game. The worst performance was a 13-point game against Arizona and the best was 44 versus Cleveland. Other than that, the scores are remarkably close to the average.

While Dilfer seems to get all of the blame for the Ravens ineptitude on the offensive side of the ball, it ignores the fact he wasn’t the starter during the 30-quarter touchdown-less streak. In fact, scoring has increased by a full touchdown since he took the helm. Maybe, just maybe, the blame lies in the fact the receiving corps is perhaps the worst in Super bowl history. Patrick Johnson? Jermaine Lewis? Qadry Ismail? Ismail is far and away the team’s best wideout, and he barely has 100 receiving yards for the entire playoffs. Johnson can fly, but he has hands of stone. Lewis is much more valuable as a punt returner. While John Elway could get by with the marginal abilities of the Three Amigos, Dilfer isn’t Elway. Heck, who is?

Trent Dilfer is simply a decent NFL quarterback. What’s so bad about that? So he’ll never live up to his draft position (#6 overall in 1994, the second QB taken after Heath Shuler). For all of the ink Steve McNair gets, he’s an inferior passer to Dilfer, though he does make up for the gap with his legs. And Kerry Collins isn’t Joe Montana either. Going into this year, who rhapsodized about Rich Gannon? Do you think Dilfer will meltdown in the face of pressure like Daunte Culpepper did?

Once again, Trent Dilfer will go into the game outmatched by his fellow signal-caller. Once again, he’ll walk out with the victory. And once again, he won’t get any of the credit. Just chalk it up to being the most underrated 11-1 Super Bowl winner in NFL history.

Article courtesy of CPKSports