By shelz.

Immediately after their wild card victory over the Indianapolis Colts, the Baltimore Ravens should have sat down and critically surveyed their chances to advance.  They should have taken the truth into consideration.  They didn’t have the depth, coaching acumen, playbook, youth or talent to move on.  They were desperate, fearful, underwhelming and injured. Those spring chickens, Manning and Brady, were the clear contenders for representing the AFC in the Superbowl and the Ravens would have no choice but to quietly leave the room while the real teams duked it out.

But like that important email that gets lost in my day gig inbox, it was overlooked, deleted by mistake or maybe the dog ate it. That memo, unlike Brendan Ayanbadejo’s errant tweets, never made it to a facility bulletin board.  Oh well. Pick your faces up off the floor expert analysts, the 2012 Baltimore Ravens are going to the Superbowl.

I give these folks a hard time about their cloudy crystal balls, suggesting that their prognosticating is reminiscent of week old sushi. But isn’t that what I do, make predictions based on assumption and heartfelt sentiment that has absolutely nothing to do with how the numbers read?

Yup.

I’m a homer though, not some unbiased industry insider paid to give picks based on logic. That totally gives me the right to say The Ravens are going to win, even if they field 8 rookies,  2 waterboys and a part-time parking attendant. I think the line between me and them is thinner than many of them would like to admit. But enough of the frowney faced brigade who will spend the entirety of the offseason acting like The Ravens found the Lombardi floating in the Inner Harbor, I have two more weeks of homering to do. And yes I did say when the dust clears, Joe Flacco will be raising that trophy before a stadium packed with shocked onlookers.  Or maybe everyone outside of Baltimore has become used to The Ravens winning when it matters.  Who knows? Better yet, who cares?

Super Bowl XLVII

The Baltimore Ravens vs. The San Francisco 49ers. The Harbowl.

I said Harbowl last year.  Close, but no cigar.  I said Harbowl this year.  Cigar! You don’t want it?  Two weeks of family albums and stories about when the brothers were six and seven arguing to the death over the past piece of chicken?  Its coming.  Am I interested?  Not really, but it’s a first-of-its-kind storyline.  And if you have cable, there are other stations to be watched.  Let folks who earn shit enjoy it.

You know who I think is going to win, but I’ll leave you with this. Peter Schmuck of the Baltimore sun wrote, “Ray Lewis has us all convinced that  God wears purple and black on game day.” But your higher power has better things to tackle (see what I can do), like hunger, world peace and the polar ice caps.  Unless football Jesus is involved.  And he isn’t.  He is giving away pizza, doing his adopted Papa’s work.  Bless his heart. So dispatch with all that football God talk.  This is about who comes to play in two weeks and my money is on you know who.  The 49ers don’t stand a Manning’s chance in freezing weather.

Cuz I said so.