Everyone loves football, right? I go to a school that has no football team, no football players, and I’ve never played the game beyond touch football. Oh, and I don’t really watch the game either.
Inevitably, I should not be making a Super Bowl Pick when I go to Las Vegas this weekend for my friends 21st birthday. Yet some of the good money I’ve made this past year as a intern financial analyst (don’t laugh) and the fact that I will be 21 in Las Vegas for the first time makes me itch to gamble.
So I got $50 saying my highly inexact method of picking will work. Wish me luck!
Criteria.
1. Who’s got better seafood?
I like my seafood as much as anyone, and both San Francisco and Baltimore are top notch places to score some fish. In San Francisco the specialty is delicious sushi, often served from legit Japanese chefs off the famous Fisherman’s Wharf. NOMZ.
It’s good seafood, but I got to admit, When I went to Baltimore for a quick day trip with my Junior High School, eating a crab cake was somehow better than seeing a revolutionary war fort. Baltimore , from my 12-year-old mind remembers, was a boring place otherwise, with not much happening beyond killer crab cakes. Also, I’m a sucker for fried food.
Advantage: Baltimore Ravens
2. Who’s got the player with the Funniest Name?
While the Baltimore Ravens feature guys with such epic names as Haloti Ngata (the g is silent) and Pernell McPhee (no relation to American Idol’s Katherine, sadly), the San Francisco 49ers play an inside linebacker named NaVorro Bowman. Where do I start with this name?
Is it the fact that he has two capital letters in his first name? The fact that I’ve never heard the name NaVorro anywhere? Or the fact that it sorta rhymes with Zorro? DaZorro?
Advantage: San Francisco 49ers
3. Yes, I Flipped a coin
Being as that I need to test out more than a few inexact methods, the old flipping a coin test never fails to give results. Best 2 out of 3, Heads = San Francisco and Tails = Baltimore, and I got… 2 tails. Go figure.
Advantage: Baltimore Ravens
4. Which team will be memed more if they win?
KAPERNICKING HAS ALREADY ARRIVED.
Advantage: Internet/49ers
5. “Is this someone’s last game?”
On Baltimore, there’s this guy named Ray Lewis, who is very good at football, I’ve been told. A cursory ESPN search uncovers that he has a Super Bowl ring already, is allegedly “the heart and soul of the team”, that he once was involved in some scandal with guns, that his child is also good at football, and that god is helping him play though a horrendous injury.
So, this makes Ray Lewis is the player of destiny. Mark it down.
Advantage: Ray Lewis/Ravens
6. The “I’m going to go against your pick just because” way.
My friend James knows football. He has watched every game this year, and now it all comes down to a final weekend. In his free time, he proudly proclaims to have researched every aspect of the game to gain a better insight on the $50 he will lose this weekend. If you need to know, He has proclaimed the Baltimore Ravens the winner because of strong special teams and DVOA stats… blah blah blah. I’m going to just pick Tim Tebow here so I don’t have to here about stats for a while
Advantage: Tim Tebow
8. Which city has the best rap music?
This category where things get technical. How the hell am I supposed to pick between Hyphy and Baltimore Club? Li’l B vs. Rye Rye? E-40 vs. DMX? Going to have to call this even.
Advantage: Tie!
9. Who will give the Best High Fives at a typical sports bar?
I’ve known Niners fans for the past three years. Most of them are type of San Francisco that you want to meet: nice, calm, way too technology centered and more than a little easy on the high fives when drunk.
While I’ve only met a few Baltimore fans, my image of the city is pretty much permanently shaped by The Wire. Even though I know it’s not the case, there’s no way I’m going to be high fiving someone like Omar or Snoop if they were around. Those dudes are scary.
Advantage: San Francisco 49ers
10. Which teams makes me feel smart?
San Francisco is a city I live close by, however picking them makes me feel too much like I’m jumping on someone’s bandwagon. Lots of my friends are Niners fans. I don’t necessarily feel smarter by picking their team, even if their teams fanbase is made of google engineers and the odd venture capitalist. For this pick I want the weirder city with less naked people, a city in a state that’s named after a former queen of England. The team who could actually count Edgar Allen Poe as a fan, if he were still alive. Mary-land. It even sounds smart!
Advantage: Baltimore Ravens
11. The “which team annoys my girlfriend more” question
My girlfriend is a Raiders fan. She’s the type of Raiders fan who has spikes hidden in her dorm room, a burned Jamarcus Russell jersey and a vested interest in any music ever made by Ice Cube. Has she seen his 30 f0r 30 Documentary? Yes. six times.
However, just because she’s a die hard Raiders fan, she also has this Bay Area complex where any team from the Bay Area winning is a team she will root for. For an L.A guy like myself, I find it incredibly weird that she can switch to being a Giants fan just because they’re reside across the bridge from her hometown. Doesn’t she have some of that true fan spirit?
Advantage: Baltimore Ravens
11. Which team has an “Angry Player Seeking Revenge” vibe?
See, a few weeks ago when I was mindlessly consuming football through Friday Night Lights reruns and Li’l Wayne songs, I heard about this Kapernick guy overtaking Alex Smith for the quarterback job in San Francisco. Now his team is in the Super Bowl, and everyone has pretty much forgotten if he was good or not.
While I may be no expert in NFL player psychoanalysis, having your quarterback get replaced means old quarterback is likely to be PISSED. If the Niners don’t win, expect the old quarterback to go on a one man media rampage. As soon as he becomes Tim Tebow’s backup backup, that is.
Advantage: San Francisco 49ers
14. The “Randy Moss is in the game? I know that guy!” method.
If I know football from anywhere, it’s from the realm of Madden, a game I often played into the wee hours of the afternoon after school when I was younger. Randy Moss was inarguably the best player in Madden 2004, the game I played most when I was 13. He could do it all. Long passes? Check. Sneaking him as running back (hehe)? Check. Ability to single handedly swing entire afternoons in your favor? Check Check Check!
If Randy Moss is even half the player he was in a video game, then the Niners, who picked the guy up off the waiver wire, will be winning in a comically epic fashion. I’m talking six broken tackles on a single play people. SIX!
Advantage: San Francisco 49ers
Let’s Count ‘em up: 49ers 5 – Ravens 5 – Tebow 1 – Tie 1.
My Pick: San Francisco 49ers 30 - Baltimore Ravens 24