Super Bowl XLVII Preview and 2012 Season in Review

Colin Kaepernick and the Niners are one win away from giving the San Fran their sixth Super Bowl Championship.

It always pains me a little the moment the Super Bowl ends and it dawns on me that there will not be football again for a long time. It’s like the last chorus in the encore of a band that doesn’t tour all the time, or the last bite from a meal you got from a restaurant that’s about to shutdown. 

And while you would not realize it if you solely got your football updates from this blog (hooray for my second post on the NFL this season! my first being a preview article! -- update: the Panthers did NOT make the playoffs like I predicted), this season, which was fantastic, is about to come to an end.

Sure, it will culminate with the San Francisco 49ers facing the Baltimore Ravens in New Orleans (is it just me, or do their head coaches look kind of alike?) but this season was not without its share of noteworthy storylines from start to finish. So before I cover the game tonight, let’s look back at the 2012-13 season.

The 2012 rookie class was okay, I guess.

New Kids on the Block

Last night it was announced among many other things that Robert Griffin III won the NFL Rookie of the Year award. While I personally believe that Russell Wilson had a better season, you simply could not go wrong in handing the award to Griffin, Wilson, or Indianapolis QB, Andrew Luck. The seasons that each of the three of them had were tremendous, and the 2012 draft class of QB’s may go down as the best since 1983 when it is all said and done.

Griffin, who won the award, was by far the most exciting player of the three to watch. What sets him apart from the typical mobile quarterback is how accurate he was this season. Griffin finished with a 65.6 completion percentage and a 20-5 touchdown-interception ratio. His signature performance happened on October 14, when he led the Redskins to a 38-26 victory over the Minnesota Vikings, throwing for a touchdown and running for 138 yards, breaking off a game-clinching 76-yard touchdown run in the process. He also led his team to six straight wins to finish the season to give the Redskins the NFC East title.

Luck, the heir apparent to Peyton Manning in Indianapolis, threw for the most yards of the three, throwing for 4374 and 23 touchdowns. He also led the Colts to an 11-5 record one year after the Colts finished with just 2 wins, doing so with Vick Ballard as his leading rusher and T.Y. Hilton as his leading receiver. 

Wilson, who was selected in the third round, threw for the most touchdowns of the three of them with 26 and just 10 interceptions. He led the Seahawks to an 11-5 record and a wild card playoff birth. He finished the season only throwing 2 picks in his last 8 games, and led his team to score 150 points in a three-game period. All three had tremendous seasons and I’m excited to see what each can do next season and throughout their respective careers.

Peyton Manning and Adrian Peterson both had MVP type seasons.

Peyton Manning and Adrian Peterson Comebacks

One had four neck surgeries and threw for over 4600 yards and 37 touchdowns, and the other finished nine yards short of the single season rushing record after tearing his ACL last December. Peyton Manning won Comeback Player of the Year, and Adrian Peterson won Offensive Player of the Year and the Most Valuable Player award. It is truly incredible how both players had such amazing seasons after their respective injuries. 

Manning of course came over to Denver from Indianapolis. He had a fantastic second half of the season and led his team to 11 straight wins and the best record in the AFC. Doctors told him that he would be smarter if he just retired. Adrian Peterson not only had his best season as a pro, but did so only missing one game after tearing his ACL, many wondering if he would ever be his same dominant self. 

Unfortunately, this happened.

The Replacement Refs 

If you have the pleasure of following me on Twitter at @AdamRomo14 (or just been around me during the first half of the season), you know that I think Roger Goodell completely effed up the first half of the season by not getting a deal done with the regular refs. I get that the regular refs are not perfect, but the game is supposed to be about the players. The game is about the best athletes displaying their talents against each other. The rest of the factors affecting a game should be as minimal as possible. That especially means the referees. 

Fans want to watch players, not refs. So if there is a way to get the calls as right as often as possible, as a commissioner you need to do everything within your power to get that to happen. This of course was highlighted in the fiasco between Green Bay and Seattle on Monday Night Football, when Golden Tate was credited with a TD catch that was actually an interception. Luckily, the incident faced enough backlash that a deal had to be reached, and the rest of the season saw the regular referees back in action. While not perfect, the people who best knew what they were doing were in place to sort out what goes on during a game, and that boosted the credibility of the game significantly.

I will likely see this image in my head until the 2013 season starts.

Super Bowl Prediction

I haven’t done that great picking games this postseason. I’ve gotten one game correct straight up from the Divisional round on (sorry Houston, even I knew you were no match for New England). Of course, against the spread I got both Championship games right, if you live in Nevada and you’re in to that whole gambling thing.

To start, let me say that San Francisco is such a different type of team than the Ravens have faced this postseason. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are two of the best quarterbacks in the game, but at their ages, once you get enough pressure on them, the play is over. Neither are going to scramble and turn the play into a positive gain; it’s going to be an incompletion, sack, or worse. 

Colin Kaepernick is different. He can make something out of nothing, and capitalize when you do give him something. His ability to make big plays down the field has been an area of concern when Jim Harbaugh made the switch to him midseason, but he has answered the call, especially in the Niners last two playoff games.

But the Ravens can make big plays downfield too. Torrey Smith was great in the Denver game, and Anquan Boldin has quietly been the Ravens best offensive player this postseason, almost single-handedly beating the Colts and converting several key third downs in the Broncos and Patriots games. 

While I generally think that momentum is overrated, especially in the playoffs, this Ravens team seems to fit the mold that has a belief that they are going to win no matter what the odds are, and also that nobody else thinks that they can win the game. That being said, the 49ers defense had an off game against the Falcons and still managed to hold Atlanta scoreless in the second half. What are the odds that they have two off games in a row?

Niners cornerbacks have to play better than they did in the NFC Championship if they want to win. Smith and Boldin will give them all they can handle.

Super Bowls, for whatever reason, are usually hard to predict to a T. They always differ than whatever conventional logic seems to say. Maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t really thought either team has played that well this season, maybe it’s the close spread, or maybe it’s the pregame mimosas, but I have really struggled with this pick all week. I think the Niners are the better team, but I think that the Ravens have come up with a system of throws that Joe Flacco is comfortable with, including deep balls to Smith sprinkled in between handoffs to Rice and throws across the middle to the tight ends and Boldin. When it’s all said and done I actually trust Flacco right now and whatever is the driving force behind is recent play more than I do a first year starting quarterback, even if he is as dynamic as Kaepernick. The pick is Ravens 30, Niners 26. But, maybe that’s just because I’m looking forward to lighting shit on fire tonight in Federal Hill. Oh well.

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