Dave’s Football Blog

I just figured out why that Mpire SuperScore Central thing that follows average prices on eBay is so heavily slanted toward the Seahawks. It’s the Terrible Towels. Steelers fans are stockpiling Terrible Towels this week, and a quick search on eBay reveals that all those towels are bringing the Steelers’ average score down — which means you can officially regard this SuperScore as a super snore. Ha ha.

So says Clark Judge, anyway, who reminds us that if San Diego hadn’t been so adamant about staying in the AFC West, the Seahawks might not be in the Super Bowl right now.

(The Chargers) were one of the original members of the AFC West. Seattle was not. In fact, Seattle wasn’t one of the original members of the AFC. When the Seahawks joined the league in 1976 as an expansion franchise, they joined as a member of the NFC. OK, so it was for only a year. But San Diego’s point resonated with the league.

Rivalries were more important to the Chargers because they’d been involved in them longer — almost two decades longer (think AFL). And they weren’t interested in jumping into a division with St. Louis, San Francisco and Arizona (which switched divisions in 2002) — no matter what the competitive advantages might be…

So San Diego stayed in a division where it was 9-7 and the third-best team this season. Seattle moved to a division where it was the only winning member and where it won 12 of its last 13, including all six this year.

The funny thing about this, though, is that both teams were playoff teams last year, yet San Diego had arguably the toughest schedule in the NFL this season, while the Seahawks had one of the easiest:

Seattle played only five opponents this year with a winning record and played the softest schedule out there — with opponents combining for a .430 winning percentage.

Makes you wonder if the Gonzaga factor will come into play. Every year, Gonzaga’s college hoops team breezes through a weak conference schedule, and it comes back to bite them in the ass every year in the NCAA tournament. I never pick Gonzaga to make the Final Four because of this. Perhaps that’s one reason why so few people are picking the Seahawks in this Super Bowl…

Texas A&M University is seeking a restraining order against the Seattle Seahawks to get them to stop with this whole “12th Man” nonsense — because it’s Aggie nonsense, dammit, and those Microsoft-lovin’ pencil-neck geeks shouldn’t mess with Texas.

If Texas A&M wins, the Seahawks will have to shut off their Blackberries… wait, that’s that other stupid lawsuit… oh, hell, who can keep up with this crap anymore? Can’t we all just play some football?

What is it these days with football players and firearms? Is the NRA trying to recruit future replacements for Charlton Heston or something?

First, there’s Redskins safety Sean Taylor, who now faces 46 years in prison on gun charges, which will no doubt be reduced to about 46 hours of community service because, y’know, he plays football. Then there’s Maurice Clarett, who’s not even in the NFL and waving a gun around like he is.

Now Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry in getting into the act. A traffic cop in Orlando spotted Henry pulling a Luger on some people he decided he didn’t like, and the cop arrested him on all manner of felony charges. Oh, by the way, that Luger was reported as stolen. Oops.

Between this and Chad Johnson allegedly beating up coaches, Bengals’ head coach Marvin Lewis may be starting to wonder if his receiving corps has the same crazy virus that’s infected Ron Artest for the last few years…

Today is Media Day at the Super Bowl. We’re going to get fed a lot of crap today. I’m nowhere near this 200-car pile-up, but I’ll try to keep up with the interesting stuff. I may be turning to Deadspin a lot today, though…

Matt Sussman of The Futon Report is predicting that Seattle will beat the Steelers by one point in Super Bowl XL. His basis for this prediction? Quarterbacks whose names have higher Scrabble value are 9-1 in the playoffs so far…

• Byron Leftwich (17) lost to Tom Brady (11)
• Jake Delhomme (16) beat Eli Manning (10)
• Mark Brunell (9) beat Chris Simms (9)
• Ben Roethlisberger (20) beat Jon Kitna (9)
• Matt Hasselbeck (21) beat Brunell (9)
• Jake Plummer (13) beat Brady (11)
• Roethlisberger (20) beat Peyton Manning (10)
• Delhomme (16) beat Rex Grossman (11)

Of course, Roethlisberger (20) beat Plummer (13) and Hasselbeck (21) beat Delhomme (16) in the conference championships. Clearly, the only true way for the Steelers to beat this is to re-acquire Chris Fuamatu-Ma’afala (24) and give him a direct snap to start the game. Or they could, y’know, just play better than Seattle…

Y’know, I know some women like to get away from their husbands during the Super Bowl, but this is ridiculous.

Look! There’s one in Seattle!

My friend Angela just sent me this note:

Breaking news on NFL Network … Seahawks were in a minor car accident on the way to the press room for their afternoon press conference. Apparently the driver of the van some of the players were riding in tried to piggy back into the facility behind another van and got hit by a rail or a fence … who was in there? Well, they didn’t mention them all, but 2 of them were Shaun Alexander and Matt Hasselbeck … that driver ought to be more careful. No apparent injuries, though.

I have a feeling that driver will be more fired instead. Nothing about this on the web yet, but I’ll post a link as soon as I see something, even if it turns out to be a non-story…

UPDATE: Yep, here’s your link. Matt Hasselbeck looked bemused about the whole thing in the press conference, while Shaun Alexander made some lame joke about this all being an evil plot by Jerome Bettis. Detroit is Bettis’ hometown. Wait, you knew that already? Okay, just checking…

(Thanks, Angela.)

Ticket’s to Eminem’s “Shady Bowl Super Party” in Detroit on Saturday are sold out.

Great. Just great. Now I’ll never get to see if that rumored battle between Mr. Mathers and Li’l Ronnie ever takes place…