Asking His Opinion Is a No-Win Situation

ATLANTA —  It’s Thanksgiving without gluttony, the Fourth of July without maimings, Memorial Day without the mosquitoes.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, our unofficial national holiday, dawning bright and clear today no matter how much cold rain has fallen upon this poor panicked city where it is being held.

A day of exclamation points, it can nonetheless not proceed without a question, asked from sports bars to cousin Ed’s basement bar to the bar stool in the toll booth where the attendant will be watching on his eight-inch black and white.

So, who do you think is going to win?

There are no right answers, only inspired ones, from your minister to your mini-mart clerk to your mom who just last week swore she thought she saw the Tennessee Titans on the Nashville Network singing, “Wabash Cannonball.”

“No doubt about it, the St. Louis Rams win, and I mean big.”

“A close game, but give me the Titans, late, you can bet on it.”

Everywhere you go, asking somebody who they think will win the Super Bowl is like asking them what they want for their birthday.

Everywhere, that is, but here.

Who do I think is going to win?

You don’t want to know.

I am the piece of broccoli in this nation’s annual smile.

I am the lint on this bit of social fabric.

I am that cold rain.

For the last 10 years, only one thing has been more certain than the Super Bowl winner receiving the Lombardi Trophy.

It is that I had picked the other guys.

In columns, to co-workers, to family members, even to my children, I have offered up yearly predictions with the strength of an insider stock tip.

Which has promptly crashed.

Or should I say, the first year of my streak, John Elway crashed, leading the Denver Broncos to a 55-10 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in 1990.

And I was so sure Joe Montana was finished.

Just like the next year, when I was so sure the Buffalo Bills were the best team, then the next year when I was so sure they would not be wide right again, and then . . .

I wrote about it in this space last year, admitting the streak publicly for the first time. I hoped that maybe in confession there would be forgiveness, and in forgiveness there would be closure, and in closure there would be . . .

This was shortly before the Atlanta Falcons’ Eugene Robinson got caught with his pants down.

So that was that, 10 in a row, a skid approaching the AFC’s 13-game losing streak, a decade of dumbness, an era of errors.

Some--well, OK, everybody--would say I simply don’t understand the game. But I wonder whether it is because I understand it too well.

Maybe I am usually right about the Final Four--yep, last year I had Connecticut--because at its core it is still a basketball game.

Perhaps I have more success picking the World Series winner because the games are no more than nine-inning extensions of the regular season.

The Super Bowl is different. It feels different. I get my feet caught in that feeling.

You eat too much food on Thanksgiving. I put too much emotion in my Super Bowl prediction.

You spend more time at the beach on Memorial Day than the rest of the year combined. I fall in love with players in January that I wouldn’t even notice in September.

Even during years when the score is lopsided and the game is a bore, the Super Bowl is still bigger than any of that, a game fairly bursting with things of the heart.

Problem is, so are my predictions.

So this year, I’m trying something new. I’m asking somebody for help. He is Steve Bisheff, a sports columnist for the Orange County Register, a local fixture and good guy. Bisheff is writing a similar column today--only his is worth reading.

Because for 20 of the last 21 years, including a recent streak of 19 years in a row, he has correctly picked the Super Bowl winner.

Gamblers have called his office wanting to know when his prediction column would run. Other newspapers have interviewed him asking for his secret.

And that would be . . . ?

“There is no secret,” he said. “A lot of guys have kidded me that it’s karma.”

Karma?

Bisheff was married to wife Marsha on Jan. 15, 1967.

Indeed, the day the Green Bay Packers played the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl I.

“Ushers were walking down the aisle with portable radios in their ears,” he said, laughing. “We gave out silver mugs that read, ‘Super Sunday.’ ”

The marriage of 33 years is still going strong. So, too, is that karma.

Me, I was 8 when they played the first Super Bowl. I’m not sure where I was, but I probably was being spanked.

So what about this year?

Bisheff said he thinks the Titans will be hurt by the injuries to receiver Yancey Thigpen and safety Marcus Robertson. He thinks both weaknesses can be exploited.

“I have to like the Rams,” he said.

Dang.

It was shown last week that pressure can rattle the Rams’ great offense, exactly the sort of pressure that is applied by the Titans’ Buddy Ryan-like defense.

It was shown during their earlier meeting this year that the Ram defense doesn’t quite know what to do with quarterback Steve McNair, who threw for two touchdowns with no interceptions, connecting with six receivers.

I like Jeff Fisher and his flexible coaching staff over Dick Vermeil and his stubborn one.

I like the Titans’ emotional practice week as compared to the Rams’ quiet one.

I like the Titans in a close game because sore-legged Ram kicker Jeff Wilkins is still so unsteady, possible replacement Nick Lowery spent the week in Atlanta waiting for a call.

And it will be a close game.

Titans by four.

But you didn’t get that from me.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A Decade of Super Futility

Times columnist Bill Plaschke had a perfect record in the ‘90s in his Super Bowl predictions--he was wrong every year:

*--*

YEAR PICK RESULT WHAT WENT WRONG 1999 Atlanta Denver 34, Atlanta 19 Didn’t know Eugene Robinson had dinner plans. 1998 Green Bay Denver 31, Green Bay 24 Didn’t know John Elway could fly. 1997 New England Green Bay 35, New England Desmond who? 21 1996 Pittsburgh Dallas 27, Pittsburgh 17 Neil O’Donnell’s favorite target was what? 1995 San Diego San Francisco 49, San Birth of daughter four Diego 26 days before game warped the mind. 1994 Buffalo Dallas 30, Buffalo 13 A week in Atlanta tested the sanity. 1993 Buffalo Dallas 52, Buffalo 17 Thought Jimmy Johnson was all hair. 1992 Buffalo Washington 37, Buffalo 24 Thought Mark Rypien was all luck. 1991 Buffalo New York Giants 20, Wide right. Buffalo 19 1990 Denver San Francisco 55, Denver Pure stupidity. 10

*--*

*

If you want to rip him for missing 11 consecutive Super Bowl predictions after today, Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected].