This is not an in-depth preview of any sort, but as a football fan, the Super Bowl is the most hyped game of the year. I don't get as antsy about the Super Bowl as a Michigan State game, an Ohio State game, or a meaningful post-season game for the Wolverines, but it's still pretty exciting to see the show the NFL puts on.
I usually root for whichever team has Tom Brady; failing that, I usually pick based on which team has more former Wolverines.
CINCINNATI BENGALS
#25 RB Chris Evans
Defensive Quality Control Assistant Jordan Kovacs
LOS ANGELES RAMS
#36 CB Blake Countess
#25 CB David Long, Jr.
Hit the jump for more.
As much as I appreciate Kovacs, I have to pull for the Rams, considering they have a couple former Michigan standouts. I know some people have mixed feelings about Countess, but he spent four years at Michigan and actually had a pretty darn good career before transferring to Auburn as a grad transfer in 2015.
Chris Evans had 320 career carries for 1,795 yards (5.6 yards/carry) and 15 touchdowns from 2016-2020. He added 49 receptions for 479 yards (9.8 yards/catch) and 2 touchdowns in the receiving game. He missed the 2019 season due to an academic violation but came back in 2020 and became a 6th round pick of the Bengals.
Jordan Kovacs made 334 tackles, 26 tackles for loss, 7 sacks, 4 pass breakups, 6 forced fumbles, and 5 interceptions from 2009-2012 after walking on to the team. He bounced around the NFL for four years, making a total of 11 tackles and 1 sack from 2013-2016.
Blake Countess made 114 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 13 pass breakups, and 6 interceptions during his four years in Ann Arbor from 2011-2014. His best season was 2013, when he made all 6 picks (including a TD return against Minnesota) and was named 1st Team All-Big Ten by the media. That was especially impressive after he missed almost all of the 2012 season after tearing his ACL in the season opener against Alabama. He was picked in the 6th round by the Eagles, though he never played for them, and has bounced around the league since then, making a total of 57 tackles and 2 interceptions in the NFL.
David Long committed to Michigan in 2016 and spent three years in Ann Arbor. He made 38 tackles, 2 tackles for loss, 0.5 sacks, and 3 interceptions (returned for 120 yards) in his career. He was picked in the 3rd round by the Rams in 2019 and has 51 tackles, 7 pass breakups, and 1 interception in his career.
As a Detroit Lions fan, too, I also have an affinity for Matt Stafford. I think Stafford did a lot of great things for the Lions and for the City of Detroit. Unfortunately, he was never able to single-handedly pull the Lions out of the doldrums, but this is a franchise that has been struggling for 60+ years. It's been fun to watch what he can do with a team that isn't constantly circling the drain as the worst franchise in the NFL. This season he tied a career high by completing 67.2% of his passes, and he threw for 4,886 yards, 43 touchdowns, and 17 interceptions. It would certainly be nice to see him win the big one.
Fandom aside, I do think the Rams will win. The Bengals are also fun to watch, but their offensive line is terrible, and the Rams have a lot of guys who can get to the quarterback. Bengals QB Joe Burrow is pretty dang good - and lucky he transferred out of Ohio State - and I don't think he'll get rattled by the pass rush. Still, it's tough to complete passes if you're lying on your back, and he's taken a ton of sacks this year.
My prediction: Rams 31, Bengals 24.
I'm torn:
ReplyDelete(a) Cincinnati is the underdog; has never won a Super Bowl; and until this year they were a pretty bad team. I have a soft spot for Cinderella stories like this.
(b) Matt Stafford is the QB for the Rams, and he suffered all those years with the Lions. If he complained about things, I don't recall reading too much about it. So I'd like to see him get his chance at the top before he retires away.
But mostly ... I don't really care who wins. I have drifted away from the NFL more and more over the years, for various reasons. I may watch the game, or I may not. It depends on how I feel at the time.
I'm in the same place. I may or may not watch it.
DeleteThe NFL used to be the most fun and awesome thing to watch on tv. When DirecTV first came out, they had the NFL package where you could watch every game. I loved it. I got 4 DirecTV receivers, and had 4 games on in the morning, then in the afternoon. So it can't be said I was never a really big fans of NFL Football.
Now, NFL doesn't have the mystique it had back then. I couldn't wait for every game, even games that most people didn't care about. But the mystique is gone. Truth is, NFL football has been dead to me for a few years now. In the little I have watched I don't even know I'm looking at pro football. It's flashy color, people that don't know the game holding microphones, and too many camera angle changing too fast. All of these things are attention getters. I know it. And I know that is always part of sports. But attention getting seems to be the ONLY thing it is now. It seems to be all trying to regain the lowered tv ratings, and attendance at games. In my case, what they're doing isn't working. They still are not getting me back to watch every week, or even one full game.
Funny, but I don't even miss it now. It could disappear from America, and I wouldn't even know it happened.
Related: I went to a Major League Baseball game about a decade ago. Prior to that, I hadn't been to a pro baseball game since the late 1970s, and after that I attended a few minor league games (including the Durham Bulls when they were still in the stadium portrayed in the movie "Bull Durham," which was a great old ballpark).
DeleteAnyway, I went to the pro baseball game and it was a *terrible* experience. Just terrible. They had big jumbo-tron screens flashing all over the stadium, and the loudspeakers were blaring obnoxious noise the whole game. It felt like I was in a video game. Which, come to think of it, may have been the point.
I haven't been to a pro baseball since, and I won't go again. Ever.
DeleteI went to an NBA game about 20+ years ago: I was bored out of my mind.
Live hockey is fun. Live hockey may be the best sport to see live. It has everything: continual action, the smell of the ice, the smell of the Zamboni exhaust, the noise of the indoor smaller arena, the sound of crashing the boards. It's great.
Wow. I love going to just about any kind of game I can attend. I have a goal of hitting every Major League Baseball stadium, and I'm a good chunk of the way there. I've only been to one NFL stadium (well, the Silverdome and Ford Field), but the games are fun to attend.
DeleteI love going to hockey games for the most part, but the crappy thing is the 20-minute intermissions between periods. The second intermission always bugged me. I want to see action!
I'm with Thunder. It's always an enjoyable experience even if there are turnoffs, like cost or hassle. I wouldn't pay a 10th of what people pay for some of these tickets but if I was comp'd them, I'm there and would have a blast.
DeleteHa! My son is a sports junkie, and has me watching more NFL than I have since Elway. That said, I too apply the "I usually root for whichever team has Tom Brady; failing that, I usually pick based on which team has more former Wolverines"
ReplyDeleteToday though, I'm going to pick Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase and the Bungles (gross, I know)
Maybe Chris Evans will get in the game.
DeleteHe did!
DeleteI am happy Long is a productive player in the NFL. I knew when he, Lavert Hill, and Jourdan Lewis were gone, there was going to be a DB space left unfilled for a while. Looking for the new breed of Coach Clink DBs to arise!!
ReplyDeleteI don't know who is going to win today. I really don't. But it's hard to bet against Joe Burrow. All he does is win. Where was Urban Meyer's head that he didn't recognize what he had in him.
Now, it's Ewers that wasn't recognized, is probably going to be a superstar elsewhere, at Texas. If Kyle McCord was smart, he'd get out of Ohio St now too.
Joe Burrow seems to have a flashy way about him. I wonder if that was present back in his OSU days, and whether that attitude might have rubbed Meyer the wrong way?
DeleteOr, I wonder, if maybe Burrow hadn't yet grown into what he is now?
From everything I've come across, Burrow was actually pretty good at Ohio State. He just wasn't THE guy. It's hard to fault Ohio State for playing the guys they have, because they've all led elite offenses.
DeleteBurrow was a solid but unexceptional player even in his senior year (first year at LSU). He didn't pop till year 5.
DeleteI can't recall ever being happier for a professional athlete than I am for Matthew Stafford.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do believe that we have definitively isolated the problem with the Detroit Lions.
Passing on 4th and 2 feet. I only watched about 3 minutes of the game. About a minute in the 2nd qtr. Then I saw on the internet, that the Rams scored with less than 2 minutes left. I watched, wanted to see what Burrow would do. I don't know who called a pass on 4th and 2 feet, and a slow developing pass play at that. smh. And they were moving the ball. I thought they'd get at least a FG and go to overtime.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great game. Cam Akers and Joe Mixon just exchanging haymakers. Love to see it.
ReplyDeleteJust joking around. I didn't watch the game because I was flying but wasn't too sad about. NFL had a pretty good playoffs all in all, but the super bowl pomp and celebrity is always a little much for me. Glad to see Stafford get his ring though - he seems like a good dude.
David Long got some credit for playing well on the last drive.
Also, Chris Evans caught a pass out of the backfield for a first down in, I think, the 3rd quarter.
DeleteI wonder if flights are cheaper during the Super Bowl since there's so much less demand for tickets. I know I certainly wouldn't be flying during the Super Bowl unless it was an absolute requirement.
DeleteMaybe a bit? Late Sunday afternoon flights will still have high demand. Even with how popular NFL is, and it is massively popular, is it's still a minority of people watching. Many people do not care about sports even one little bit.
DeleteIf the Lions were playing I wouldn't have missed it. Next year, obviously.