Sports: The Picks

This Sunday is the big deal for football fans. Conference championship playoff games are generally better games than the Super Bowl, a game that almost always seems to be a letdown, except for the occasionally great commercial. How odd that so many people who wouldn't normally sit through an entire NFL game will sit through the Super Bowl just to catch the commercials.

But anyway, my picks:

Like it or not, the New England Patriots will be heading to the Super Bowl by stepping over the injured bodies of the San Diego Chargers. LaDanian Tomlinson will most likely not be at full strength, nor will QB Phillip Rivers, and even if he is 100% he may get distracted from the game itself by getting into verbal sparring matches with the New England fans.

My feeling is that at this point there is only one team that can defeat the Patriots, one team that is on some sort of divine football mission to win the Big Game, and that one team is the Green Bay Packers.

When the New York Giants travel to the godforsaken tundra that will be Lambeau Field this Sunday, when they enter a place that is truly in the hinterlands of professional sports, they will meet a team that is not only rarin' to go but that is having fun on every snap of the ball. Aside from having talent, never ever discount unbridled enthusiasm. These guys have it, none more so than their Fearless Leader, Brett Favre. (I wish John Madden were doing this game; he just gushes over Favre so.) The New Yorkers only scored 21 against Dallas last weekend; that will not be enough to beat the Packers this Sunday. Favre and his supporting cast will slay the Giants, and the Manning brothers can both stay home and watch the Super Bowl on TV.