MY SUPER BOWL PREDICTION IS …
By STEVE KING
This is a story about predictions, and being predictable.
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Everybody’s making predictions about Sunday night’s Super Bowl 54 between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs at Miami. And while predictions are fun because I like hearing, and seeing, what people think about this, that and the other, in and out of sports, I hate making them myself because when you’re wrong, you get hammered. When you’re right, I don’t have it in me to gloat because I despise bragging. These games, for the most part, are a crapshoot, hinging on any number of things that could sway them drastically one way or the other. The real trick is trying to figure out what those things may be and how they will go.
But the bottom line is that if you’re going to cover the NFL, then you have to man up and offer a prediction for the league’s biggest game.
And so I will.
I see it this way, and I’ve seen it this way for three or four days, that the 49ers will win 37-24. Yes, that’s right, the 49ers, who needed binoculars to see the Super Bowl by the end of the 2018 season, will win it all for the first time in 25 years by defeating – by nearly two touchdowns – the Chiefs, who came within an eyelash of making it the Super Bowl last season.
Why?
The Chiefs have the best offense in the NFL, while the 49ers boast the top defense. So those two groups will cancel each other out when they go against each other, with Kansas City and San Francisco both winning about the same amount of battles.
As such, then, it will come down to which unit will perform better between the San Francisco offense and the Kansas City defense. And in that regard, I think the 49ers have a decided edge. I know the Chiefs stopped the running attack of the Tennessee Titans in the second half of the AFC Championship Game, but I just don’t trust them to do it once more against another talented rushing offense.
As for the Browns, like Bill Murray with the way he was living his life in the movie, “Groundhog Day,” which will get a lot of views on Sunday with that being Groundhog Day, they can’t get it right when it comes to making it to the Super Bowl. They are, as Murray was, very predictable — predictably bad.
After many, many failures, Murray eventually got it right, though. Will the Browns do the same at some point?
Only time will tell.
Enjoy the game, and all the fun that goes with it.
