Who Will Win The Super Bowl?

Super Bowl XLVII. Who knew that your grade school studies of Roman numerals would come in so handy someday?

I could get into an in depth analysis of each team here, position by position, weaknesses versus strengths, etc., but I won't. I won't because that is the kind of stuff that we are all being bombarded with from every angle ad nauseum during the endless build up to the Super Bowl. And I won't because there are far better people to do that on this site than I.

So I'm going to analyze this game two ways. First up: a Maddening prediction. In case you haven't heard, in a thrilling contest that went down to the final seconds, the Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Prediction has predicted the Baltimore Ravens as Super Bowl XLVII champions, defeating the San Francisco 49ers 27-24. With the victory, the Ravens will have captured their second Lombardi Trophy and allowed linebacker Ray Lewis to end his illustrious NFL career as a Super Bowl champion. The Madden Prediction plays a simulated Super Bowl on Madden NFL each year, and has successfully predicted the outcome of 7 of the last 9 Super Bowls. So for everyone out there who thinks the Birds are the Word and are Whacko for Flacco, you all should be Raven about the Madden Prediction this week.

Next up: the Smackdad Predictor. It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that Super Bowl winners are often led by Hall of Fame QBs. But the extent this has become a near necessity to win it all may be overlooked. In the last 5 Super Bowls, 9 out of 10 starting QBs were future Hall of Famers, and if Kurt Warner squeaks in, you can make that 10 of 10. The last 9 Super Bowls straight were won by HOF QBs. The last time a pedestrian QB won it all was in 2003 with Brad Johnson and theTampa Bay Bucs. Of the last 20 Super Bowls, all but 3 were won by HOF QBs (2 if you count Warner as a HOFer). Finally, over the last 20 Super Bowls, never, not once, has a non HOF QB beaten a HOF QB in the Super Bowl. The last time that happened was 21 years ago, when the extraordinary Joe Gibbs coached the Redskins under Mark Rypien to victory over the Jim Kelly led Bills.

So the Smackdad Predictor is simple: find the Hall of fame QB in this game and go with him. Couldn't be simpler, right? Ah, but the task is deceptively difficult. In fact, many of the HOF QBs who won over the last 20 years were not in any way thought of that way at the time. Roethlisberger, Brady, Eli Manning -- all won early in their careers, before the HOF crown had been bestowed on them. So we can't just say find the guy who is already considered HOF worthy. And in fact this Super Bowl presents us with 2 QBs who have yet to earn their HOF stripes. Neither at this point is remotely close to being a lock for eventual ascension to Canton. So how to decide? I'm going with this. Of the HOF QBs who have won over the last 20 years, every one was either firmly established in the pantheon of NFL greats by the time he won it, or was very early in his career, no later than year 4, and just on the verge of breaking out in a big way. There's only one QB who satisfies that criterion in this game, and his name is extremely difficult to spell. Ladies and gentleman, I introduce to you the latest addition to the NFL QB Immortals club, and the MVP of Super Bowl XLVII, the Bay Area Baller, you heard it here first (sorta), I'm Colin the game for the 49ers Golden Arm himself, Colin "the Kappersnapper" Kaepernick.

So what about you? Do you think either of the QBs in this game are Canton bound? Do you think Madden Rules, or is the Smackdad Predictor the new king of Super Bowl prognosticaters? Who are you picking for the big game, and why?