Super Bowl XXXVIII

[lionsfan]

http://www.nflhelmetstore.com/patriots.gif VS. http://www.nflhelmetstore.com/panthers.gif

Should be a good one... :D

[Lou]

Yeah I hope Carolina wins, gotta root for the underdog.

[Dave's PA Rental]

awwww Lou...come on man!!!

[Ally_Kat]

New England, deffy

[Troy]

Patriots + Panthers + SuperBowl = Low ratings

[Dave's PA Rental]

Yeah, I was hoping for the Eagles.

Tom Brady is Joe Montana.

And Im drunk again.

[Lou]

That's true the ratings will suffer a bit. But not that much. The SB always gets sky-high ratings. BTW the top-10 watched "episodes" of shows of all time were all SB's.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

I'll go ahead and take Carolina...

It's more of a wish than thinking they'll actually do it...

Anything to stop these fucking "experts" from this DYNASTY horseshit....

[Bob_R]

New England

[Gmoney]

Have to go with the Patriots just because I hate the Panthers' uniforms.

[Troy]

Does anyone think either team will score over 21 points... by offense TD's???

[Mr Walker]

It's gonna be a fight.
It's been along time since the Superbowl has featured 2 bruising punishing defenses.
Who cares about ratings...
I'm looking foward to this one!

[Dave's PA Rental]

Heres a stat...

New England was 10-0 vs. teams with at least 10 wins this year. The next closest team in the history of the NFL was the 85 Bears who went 9-1 vs teams with 10 wins.

DYNASTY!!!!!!!!!!

(and they are not boring...)

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Booooooooring, Booooooooooring........

:D

Why do I feel myself jumping on the Panthers' bandwagon ???

LET'S GO PANTHERS !!!!

[lionsfan]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylc=X3oDMTBqbDlib2pqBF9TAzk1ODYxMDU5BHNlYwNl Y2w-?slug=dontbelievetheh&prov=cnnsi&type=lgns

Don't believe the hype

Don Banks, SI.com

Already you're hearing it. Super Bowl XXXVIII is still 12 days away and the discontent has cleared the murmuring stage and is headed for out-and-out griping.

The matchup of the Patriots and Panthers isn't very glamorous, the critics say. The head coaches are both the blandest of quotes. The rosters are largely star-less assemblages of team-first players. And both squads rely heavily on their defenses, which means the big game could be a low-scoring, field-goal fest in which scoring plays are at a premium.

Blah, blah, blah.

Heck, even the game's more-unwieldy-than-ever seven-letter Roman numeral designation doesn't seem to be worth all the trouble. There's a sense that folks just want to cut to the chase, tune in for the final score, and quickly move along to the start of 2004's free-agent signing season and the mind-numbing buildup to the NFL Draft.

To that we say, hold your horses, buckos. It may not be Steelers-Cowboys of 25 years ago, but there's plenty to like about this year's Super Bowl pairing if you just give it a chance. Besides, it's the only game in town for the next two well-hyped weeks, so you're not going to be able to ignore it even if you wanted to. Here are five reasons we should all tune in to New England-Carolina rather than label it a turn-off.

With a win, the Patriots will go down as one of the best teams in NFL history: Don't scoff. Whether you're willing to admit it or not, the 2003 Patriots will deserve mention among the game's elite if they finish the season with 15 consecutive wins and a Super Bowl title -- their second in three years, no less.

New England's 14-game win streak is already the second longest one-season streak in NFL history, trailing only the 17-0 record that a certain team from Miami hung up in 1972. And Lord knows we've already deified those Dolphins enough.

The Patriots haven't lost since September, and it's 16 wins out of 17 after their opening-day egg-laying at Buffalo. That's not 17-0, but it's the next best thing. In a league where you can't even trust the Bengals to stink and the high-powered Rams to beat the sad-sack Lions these days, that's a remarkable run of sustained excellence.

New England beat Indianapolis twice and Tennessee twice -- the second and third best teams in the AFC -- and throttled another conference finalist in Philadelphia. The Patriots' defense paced the league in points allowed (238), shut out three opponents and held visitors to 3.7 points per game in their final six dates at Gillette Stadium. That's stuff worthy of the '76 Steelers.

We know it's human nature not to realize greatness in our midst until a little time has passed and some perspective sets in. Hey, I once walked out of Raising Arizona because I didn't get it. But let's not the miss the moment at hand. These Patriots are better than good. One more win and they're great.

Neither New England nor Carolina has gone out and bought itself this Super Bowl run. Are you listening, Daniel Snyder? Yes, the Patriots and Panthers are here in part because they've successfully used free agency as a method of personnel acquisition, but it's not their sole means of gathering talent.

Carolina brought in running back Stephen Davis and quarterback Jake Delhomme as free agents this season, but it also drafted the likes of Julius Peppers, Mike Rucker, Kris Jenkins, Steve Smith, DeShaun Foster, Jordan Gross, Dan Morgan, Ricky Manning Jr., Mike Minter, Muhsin Muhammad, Deon Grant and Will Witherspoon.

That's what you call a nucleus, and it's a darn fine one now that it has had two years of shaping by head coach John Fox and his staff.

New England was the king of shrewd free-agency moves last offseason, attracting key players like Rodney Harrison, Ted Washington and Tyrone Poole to the NFL's best defense. And the biggest name, outside linebacker Rosevelt Colvin, was lost for the year to a hip injury in September.

But the Patriots just don't seem to miss in the draft, either. Tom Brady in the sixth round? And then there's Richard Seymour, Deion Branch, Daniel Graham, Jarvis Green, Bethel Johnson, Dan Koppen, Dan Klecko, Matt Light, Asante Samuel, Eugene Wilson and Ty Warren, all of whom arrived via the draft since head coach Bill Belichick and vice president of player personnel Scott Pioli started picking them in 2000.

Not to go all Smith-Barney on you, but by 2004 NFL standards, the Patriots and Panthers have built largely the old-fashioned way. Their work in March and April has paid off in the fall and winter. They can't say that in Washington.

This game continues the trend of good-guy, lightly regarded quarterbacks getting their day in the sun. Tired of the Kurt Warner-like rags-to-riches Super Bowl success stories? Too bad. The game has become a virtual showcase for the unsung since John Elway hobbled off into retirement after winning his second consecutive Super Bowl ring in January 1999.

And we love it. Look, I grew up on Bob Griese, Roger Staubach, Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana winning the Big One. I found it quite monotonous.

Give me Warner going from stocking shelves to slinging touchdown passes any day. Let a good man like Trent Dilfer taste Super Bowl glory, or an engaging upstart like Tom Brady captivate the nation's football fans with his out-of-nowhere rise. And last year, seeing a victorious Brad Johnson, a guy drafted in the ninth round (which they don't even have anymore), only confirmed that good things do come to those who wait.

This year's prime candidate for the least-likely-to-succeed quarterback role is Carolina's Delhomme, who was never drafted and didn't even start the Panthers' season opener this year, for crying out loud.

The former Saints backup has been cut more times than Chuck Wepner, and he entered this season with two career starts. No matter. He has the stage now when guys like Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Steve McNair, Brett Favre, Trent Green and the other Jake (Plummer) are sitting home watching.

And even if Brady wins again, for the second time in three years, it's another victory for the overlooked-quarterback club. He was a sixth-rounder who couldn't even beat out Brian Griese at Michigan. Remember? Two rings in his first four NFL seasons ought to salve that wound for good.

There's a lot riding on the outcome. The way I see it, John Kerry is a Patriots fan and John Edwards is a Panthers partisan. I don't have to tell you that the winner on Feb. 1 gets a huge bounce heading into those key Democratic primaries on Feb. 3.

Hey, the media loves to turn politics into a horse race, so why not make the Super Bowl a winner-take-all format for Kerry and Edwards? Pats win, Kerry gets all the delegates in the Feb. 3 primaries. Ditto for Edwards. At the very least, for drama it would beat the heck out of all those silly wagers made by the governors from the opposing Super Bowl states.

They say this game doesn't have name appeal, but they're wrong. I make you this pledge: Any game involving a guy named Tedi Bruschi at middle linebacker can't be boring. And I feel pretty much the same way about Larry Izzo, Roman Phifer, Mike Vrabel and Romeo Crennel.

I don't even know what a Tully Banta-Cain is (what's the deal with Patriots linebackers?), but I'm sure going to tune in and find out on Super Sunday. True, I'm sorry the Ty Law-Lawyer Milloy dream team was broken up this season, but I'm sure the Patriots had legal reasons for doing so. On the Carolina side, the idea of a guy named (Brentson) Buckner playing against a team from New England in the postseason is kind of delicious. If he lets the game-winning fumble roll through his legs, could we all just kind of let go of 1986 and call it even?

Julius Peppers, Rod "He Hate Me'' Smart, Nick Goings (as in Goings to the Super Bowl) and Brad Hoover (the big fullback will suck it up and block for you) add a little something to the proceedings as well. And I haven't even figured out what to make of Panthers rookie linebacker Vinny Ciurciu, who has only an R separating him from a last name that could double as an echo.


Updated on Tuesday, Jan 20, 2004 7:06 pm EST

[Dave's PA Rental]

Here's another stat...In the last three consecutive Patriots playoff games, they have defeated the NFL MVP in each of those three games.

Dont hate, VA Beach.

Does your vagina still hurt from when the Pats hate-fucked the Steelers in the AFC championship game in 2001?

Or did you not get your deposit back on the condo you were going to rent down in New Orleans?

WAHOOOOO! IM HOT TONIGHT!!

[Va Beach VH Fan]

[[ In his best Chinese accent....]]

"You funny like Bob Hope..."

Yeah, that was a painful one....

Fucking special teams, kills ya every time....

But looking back, I don't even think that loss was as painful as the loss to San Diego in the '95 AFC Championship....

Now that was an upset....

[Polk High]

carolina by 10

[Wayne L.]

The Carolina Panthers are going to beat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl even though it's going to be a close scoring game.

[DLR7884]

What's the over under on this game?

DLR7884
Can't be more than 30 or 31.

[Dave IS VH]

I have to go with NE Pats this time the Pats Defense is too tough for the Panther

[Va Beach VH Fan]

The over-under is currently at 38....

I agree with you though, I don't see those two teams meeting that....

[Jim the Painter]

Patriots all the way!

[clynch5150]

GO PANTHERS!!!!!!!!!!!

[redblkwht]

Originally posted by Dave IS VH
I have to go with NE Pats this time the Pats Defense is too tough for the Panther
I agree here, the Pats Defense is so under rated..
Carolina wont score mre than 10. look what they did to
Indy scoring machine..
Pats by 9!

[VHrocks]

Who gives a flying funk what teams are playing? I just want to see Van Halen rock the SuperBowl!!!

Yeah baby!!!

[Polk High]

go nfc in the pro bowl

[DLR7884]

If you think VH is gonna play the Superbowl you are on crack.

It's not gonna happen.

DLR7884
And if it did, it would be with Sam, so it really wouldn't be VH, would it?

[POJO_Risin]

Jesus...I can't believe someone came onto this site and fucking said they wanted to see Van Hagar rock...

with that being said...I'll go with the underdogs...the Panthers...home town here...and I fucking hate New England...so fuck 'em...

[Polk High]

relax dude VH is ed, al, mike, dave. That is final and it has been double stamped by both harry and llyod in dumb and dumber. As we all know you can't triple stamp a double stamp so there you have it

[rustoffa]

Those patties db's sure fucked some people up the other week.......

[POJO_Risin]

Law had three picks...

but don't forget the rook from the Panthers..."The other Manning"...Ricky Manning jr., had three as well...

if the Panthers secondary comes to play...this game could get really fucking interesting...

I'm thinking right now...a low scoring game...won by an offensive mistake...we'll see...we'll see...

I think the potential for NE to throw is more than Carolina though...