Before the conference finals, two weeks ago, I already had my game, and the theme of this column: the ghosts of the Super Bowl…
Everything seemed simple then. The two best teams of the regular season would dismiss the reigning champions and the Cinderella Lions (ta-dam!) and meet in Las Vegas for a repeat of the 2013 final, the dramatic conclusion of which is on the list of endings most frustrating games in Super Bowl history: the Forty-Niners losing by five points and, with less than two minutes to play, finding themselves at the Ravens’ 5-yard line with three tries in front of them. Three little missed passes, thrown towards the same receiver “marked in the pants”, as they say in soccer. While Frank Gore, one of the best running backs in the NFL, who had just passed 110 yards on 19 carries, for an average of nearly 6 yards per carry, was relegated to the role of spectator in the backfield.
So it was a foregone conclusion: Super Bowl LVIII would pit the Baltimore Ravens against the San Francisco Forty-Niners, and among the ghosts of the past lurking in the Nevada desert would be Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who threw these three lame passes at the goal gate and who would later be “barred” from the NFL, a world notoriously imbued with patriotic values, for having disrespected the Star-Spangled Banner by supporting the Black Lives Matter movement with one knee placed on the ground as if the last seconds of a match were ticking away; Kaepernick who, as recently as last fall, at the venerable age of 36, was a fixture with the Cleveland Browns who were looking for a pivot, and who preferred him, who do you think? Yes, his victorious opponent from 2013, Joe Flacco.
Another ghost: Jim Harbaugh, the coach whose brain cramp allowed his brother John’s Ravens to win the 47e Super Bowl and who, after having completed his purgatory with a national college football championship in Michigan, will make his return to the big league next fall, charged with the delicate mission of auscultating the fragile psyche of the gifted of San Diego.
And, speaking of ghosts, how can we not talk about those of the Bills? In the quarterfinals against the Chiefs, they try a surprise play on a punt and they give the ball to who? Damar Hamlin, literally back from the dead a year ago. It did not work. And the Chiefs, as if they needed help, picked it up around the 35 line in Bills territory. Then, as the final seconds of the game ticked away, we watched in disbelief as a live reincarnation as, in the guise of a kicker named Tyler Bass, the Scott Norwood of 1991 came back to haunt Buffalo.
It’s very simple, my text was practically written. On paper, the Ravens were the best. But when they got on the field, they completely panicked, and Lamar Jackson joined Kirk Cousins, Josh Allen, Dak Prescott and Justin Herbert in the lobby of the select club of the best-quarterbacks-to-never-have -won-the-Super Bowl, chaired by Dan Marino.
Fortunately there were the guys from San Francisco to, by the skin of their teeth, restore the success percentage of my predictions, rather stable since the first round, to 50%. Indeed, the enlightened amateur that I pride myself on being posts a sober 6-6 for the month of January, which makes me the kind of expert who might as well be flipping a coin in the air rather than spending his evenings going through the combined statistics (tackles, pressures, quarterback sacks) of Fred Warner and Nick Bosa to weigh the probability that these guys will manage to stop Pacheco and catch Mahomes in his pocket or out of it .
A consensus seems to be emerging around tomorrow’s meeting: the Forty-Niners can count on the best formation, but, in the circumstances, you would have to be crazy to bet against the Chiefs. The same thing was said about Tom Brady: are you really going to bet against him? As superhuman as he was, he still lost three Super Bowls out of 10…
What also emerges from the comments of ordinary fans as well as the comments of the appointed reporters is the kind of amused weariness, tinged with gentle disgust, which gives rise to the circus in the midst of which the Kansas City Chiefs now operate. Three turnovers committed by the Ravens and a series of stupid penalties have ensured that the football aficionado is now forced to live with the idea that media coverage of the most famous romance since Caesar and Cleopatra can only explode on the occasion of the most “celebrity” Super Bowl in history.
And big number 87, with his physique more suited to selling Ram pickups on TV than to riding around in a limousine, thrives under this onslaught of attention… In the conference final, as if to respond to the ubiquity of his girlfriend, he was everywhere on the field.
Last I heard, the odds favored the Niners by a couple of points. I know that Andy Reid’s men have sniffed the big trophy and that they are on the warpath to establish their dynasty, but I’m going to play it safe and go with Purdy and his gang. Because the Chiefs won’t be able to contain McCaffrey, who has the hard, square jaw of a Missouri farm boy who knocks over calves when he jostles the first lines of defenders, and prevent Deebo Samuel, known as the “Swiss Army Knife”, to gallop into enemy territory after stealing a handover or catching a short pass, and Aiyuk to complete one or two long decisive plays, covering George Kittle into the bargain!
Come on, I’ll throw in my thirty cents: a victory for the Forty-Niners by six points, and a 7-6 record for bibi.