Semantic Compositions

SC's Super Wrong Pick

The track record here is right at 50% (on a whopping 2 picks in as many years), so your host's reputation is on the line with this one. There's no great language hook with this Super Bowl, aside from perhaps noting Gregg Easterbrook's sardonic names for both teams:

TMQ [Easterbrook's column] has long called the Chicago team the Ming Ding Xiong, "Bears whose outcomes are decided by fate" in Chinese. I've long called the Indianapolis team the Lucky Charms, owing to their horseshoes.

Having missed the column where Mr. E. coined that nickname for the Bears, SC isn't sure why Chinese was the obvious language to reach for. Other cheap language gags just don't seem to do it, either -- a column on how Chicago's "Tank" Johnson got his nickname would be full of lame jokes about his multiple arrests for illegal gun possession, and how if he had gone to the English Premier League to play soccer, he'd be nicknamed Arsenal. Or maybe just Arse.

It's been a long time since SC has had so little rooting interest in a Super Bowl. Leaving Tank Johnson aside, everything balances out perfectly. SC dislikes both quarterbacks -- Perfect Peyton for being related to Satan Eli Manning (and for reminding him of The Worst Draft Pick in History every time he takes the field), and Rex Grossman for being able to put up a perfect 0 in an objective, zero-based measurement of his job performance and still get paid millions. If most people flamed out as badly in their work as Rex Grossman has in his, they'd be fired. To put the horror of being Rex Grossman into proper context, understand that someone who threw the ball off the field on every play would earn a 36.9 quarterback rating (you can check SC's math here). Mr. Grossman failed to clear that low hurdle five times this season (in 16 tries). On the flip side, both coaches are men of exemplary personal conduct (SC didn't know much about Lovie Smith; read this article and know he's a good man). Your host therefore declines to root against either, although he hopes that if the Colts win, Perfect Peyton nonetheless is remembered for nearly blowing it himself.

While there's no partisan interest here in the end, a pick still needs to be made. SC is struck by the fact that the worse the Bears play, the better they seem to do, as noted by former Cardinals coach Dennis Green immediately following the prototypical example of this claim.  So in the spirit of Gregg Easterbrook's haiku-based approach to football analysis, and since Mr. Easterbrook failed to write a haiku of his own to make a prediction, your host offers the first -- and probably last -- haiku to appear in these pages:

Super Bowl upset.
Bears win though Rex is gross man,
Grosser quarterback.

Yes, it's syllabically correct. And no, don't take the points.

Notes on The Catastrophe

This is why SC almost never writes about anything involving the San Diego Chargers until after the fact. Some observations occasioned by the event:

• In the past, SC has suggested to people that he might name one of his children LaDainian or Drew (or maybe Drew LaDainian). Philip is out of the question (if SC did so, people would ask his children why they got a normal middle name like "Philip", and the strange first name "Curseyou"). However, based on today's results, if he wants to name a son after the Charger whose name gets called the most, his name will be Personal Foul.
• Tomorrow, SC will wake up in Southern California. The temperature will peak at 62 degrees Fahrenheit over the course of the day.  It will be sunny. Bostonians will wake up to a rainy day with a high of 35. No reason SC mentions that one.
• This marks 5 years in a row that Reche Caldwell has made Chargers fans sick. The first four years he did this, he was drawing a paycheck from the organization.
• Next Sunday, SC will enthusiastically root for someone with the last name Manning. He will then be checked into a hospital for psychiatric observation, and will not be released until That Name makes him visibly ill again.
• From the Annals of Statistically Improbable Phrases, a comment made on the phone by SC, after the game, to a friend: "Marty Schottenheimer will probably be fired this week. I actually feel sorry for Marty." If you don't know why this is something that took SC 30 years to be willing to say, you probably don't know that Marty spent the '90s coaching a hated rival.

Alright, that's enough grousing. OK, no it isn't. But SC is going to stop now, to focus on serious things again. Like how Gregg Easterbrook calls the Patriots the "Flying Elvii" based on their ridiculous logo.

Recovery will be a long, slow process.

Thanks a lot, Ohio State

That didn't turn out exactly as planned. Oh Brother SC is $10 richer tonight. Meanwhile, the precision, if not the recall, of posts under this topic just dropped by half.

Next year, I'll just take the underdog straight up.

Picking OSU-Florida

Last January, SC warned you to take the Texas Longhorns to cover the spread and possibly even win outright in the BCS Championship. This year, he is issuing no such warning against the favorite. Working on the assumption that this morning's line of 7 1/2 is still good as of gametime, it is your host's firm belief that this evening will feature a stomping of Florida by Ohio State.

SC has no dog in this fight, being personally attached to Michigan as Big 10 teams go. Michigan is a better team than Florida and should be playing in this game as far as your host is concerned. However, it can't be overlooked that Michigan was also exposed by USC in the Rose Bowl, which proves one of two things: 1) USC would easily roll to a national championship had they not blown two games badly, or 2) Ohio State really is just better than everyone, and it was a miracle that Michigan came as close as they did to beating them. Because your host's skepticism of the Trojan mystique remains (John David Booty? Starting? Seriously?), he inclines to the latter view, and in that view, Florida has no chance. Therefore, he'd take Ohio State to win and cover the spread all the way up to 10. But that's just him.

Super Bowl XL pick

Since your host doesn't know how to quit when he's ahead, and also because having a topic to segment off game predictions eems like a good idea, we'll use today to introduce the SC Sportswire, which will never actually be a pay service.

The consensus pick among ESPN's commentators (not to say experts) is the Steelers, with 15 of 24 reporters picking them. The betting lines are hovering around a 4-point advantage to the Steelers. Sometimes, the consensus is wrong, as when USC was favored so heavily to win the college football championship a few weeks ago, but this time, SC thinks it's basically correct. The AFC is a much more competitive conference, and Seattle's 13-3 record doesn't impress SC as much as Pittsburgh's 11-5. The Seahawks aren't as soft as their detractors think they are, but in SC's opinion, the Steelers already have faced and beaten three playoff teams as good or better than the Seahawks. So it's the Steelers to win, with SC taking them to cover any line short of 7 points.