Nightmare Super Bowl

Where are Eli Manning and Justin Tuck when I need them?

A year and a half ago, I wrote my Sports Hate Power Rankings.  As I noted in a comment, the Seahawks were a glaring omission.  I said they should be inserted at number 7.  Well, the Heat were at number 6 and that was mostly because of LeBron James.  So I'd move them way down the list now, which puts the Seahawks at number 6 and the Patriots at number 5.  These are my two least favorite NFL teams and now they're playing each other in the Super Bowl.

If there was ever going to be a Super Bowl that I wouldn't watch, this would be it.  I just like football too much, though.  So I will watch, but I won't be happy about either result.  I compared this possibility to a Knicks-Lakers NBA Finals.  But even though they are my two least favorite teams in the NBA, it's not a good comparison.  I would root for the Knicks without a second thought.  I hate the Seahawks and the Patriots almost equally.  The only good thing is that one of these teams is going to lose the Super Bowl.

So why do I hate these teams so much?  Let's start with the Seahawks.  Pete Carroll, Pete Carroll, Pete Carroll, Richard Sherman, and Pete Carroll.  If I did a Sports Hate Power Rankings for people, Pete Carroll wouldn't be number 1 (Barry Bonds), but he'd probably be number 1 out of football people.  Pete Carroll coached the Jets to a 6-10 record (last place) in 1994.  He was fired after one year and replaced by Rich Kotite (that worked out well).  After a couple other NFL stops (including stop as head coach of the Patriots), he went to USC.  He built his team on cheating.  The 2005 Notre Dame-USC game was the most exciting sporting event I've ever attended in person.  Notre Dame lost that game because of USC using a professional athlete.  Reggie Bush was by far the best player on the field, but he was not eligible to play in that game.  Then Pete Carroll went to the Seahawks (because he wanted to escape USC before the punishment came down) and built a team on performance enhancing drugs.  So he's been had four different college/NFL head coaching jobs.  He got fired at his first two jobs, and then he discovered cheating.

For the Patriots, it's Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.  By all accounts, Tom Brady is a good guy.  However, he went to Michigan.  If he had only won one Super Bowl to this point, I'd probably root for the Patriots.  But I really don't want Tom Brady to tie Joe Montana with four Super Bowl wins.  I'll always appreciate what Eli Manning and Justin Tuck did in Super Bowls XLII and XLVI.  Now Tom Brady has another chance to win his fourth Super Bowl and a cheating scumbag is my only hope for preventing it.  Speaking of cheating scumbags, Bill Belichick hasn't won a Super Bowl since Eric Mangini exposed his cheating in 2007.  I'd like to keep it that way.  Belichick was also named head coach by the Jets and never coached a game for them.  And the Jets were the team that unleashed Tom Brady on the NFL.  Brady was going to be good no matter what, but his career would have been much different if Mo Lewis didn't knock out Drew Bledsoe in 2001 (Brady wouldn't have won Super Bowl XXXVI that season, no way to know what happens after that).

The other thing that makes this miserable is that both of these teams should have lost already.  How did the Packers lose yesterday?  If Notre Dame ever made it to the semifinals and lost like that, I don't think I'd be able to leave my house for a month.  I was on the phone with my brother Sean early in the game and I said I hated kicking the field goals (especially the first one when they were inside the one, they were a little farther out the second time).  Maybe they wouldn't have scored a touchdown, but you have to try to get a foot and a half for four extra points.  Even if you don't get it, the Seahawks would have been pinned inside their own one.  And the Ravens should have beaten the Patriots last week.  The Patriots did a great job to come back, but the Ravens have to put them game away when you're up by 14 two different times.

So we have two teams that I have reason to hate both as a Notre Dame alum and as a Jet fan.  The Seahawks have no Notre Dame players (at least they had Golden Tate last year) and the Patriots have two (Darius Fleming and Jonas Gray).  If the guys on the Patriots were major contributors, then that might be a reason to root for them.  But I'm rooting for the Seahawks (really just rooting against the Patriots more than against the Seahawks) for a couple of reasons.  First, the Patriots have a coach and a quarterback I despise and the Seahawks only have a coach that I despise.  I have no issue with Russell Wilson.  And second, go back to the Sports Hate Power Rankings.  Michigan was number 1.  I can't root for a Michigan guy to tie Joe Montana with four Super Bowl wins.

So Pete Carroll is a cheating scumbag, but I have to root for him against another cheating scumbag.  I guess the best possible outcome would be that a huge scandal surfaces that forces Carroll to resign before the game and then the Seahawks win without him.  That would be something I could enjoy.

The misery of winter that usually kicks in after the Super Bowl has started two weeks early for me.  I just can't wait for the Big East Tournament.