VITO'S VIEWS

The 60th Super Bowl doesn’t look like a good matchup on paper and nobody will be surprised if it is a one-sided game. 

The Seattle Seahawks are favored to beat the New England Patriots by 4.5 points mainly because they played a much tougher schedule than the Patriots, who have the fourth easiest schedule of any team to play in the Super Bowl.

The Seahawks lead the league with 17.2 points allowed and also lead the league and third down defense and yards allowed per rush. And they had the fourth toughest schedule this year while New England had the easiest. And they have the more experienced quarterback in Sam Darnold, who bounced around the league before finding his home in Seattle. New England, by contrast, has a second-year quarterback in Drake Maye, who has played well for a second year quarterback but may or may not have a shoulder problem. Darnold has an oblique injury but it hasn’t seem to bother him.

There is also the dynamic of whether New England will overachieve the way they have done most of the year and pull off an upset. Or could the Seahawks be overconfident.

Those are the big questions going into the game, but it will be a surprise if the Patriots pull off an upset. All signs are that the Seahawks are a much better team and should win.

Once the NFL went to a 17-game season with three preseason games in 2021, it seemed like just a matter of time before the league went to 18 games with two preseason games.

More games mean more money and make it more  easy to play more international games. And while the players aren’t keen on the idea, they usually give the owners what they want in negotiations. In fact, New England owner Bob Kraft said recently it was a foregone conclusion to happen.

But at the Super Bowl, it didn’t sound like it is a sure thing. 

First, commissioner Roger Goodell said at his Monday press conference that an 18-game season is not a given and can’t assume it will happen. He said it is something they have to talk to the union about and that they haven’t had discussions about it.

And the next day, David White, the acting director of the NFLPA, said of the players, “They don’t have any appetite for (18 games).”

He brought up the injuries that happened at the end of the year. And more games mean more injuries.

“These injuries, they cost players pay,” he said. “They can shorten careers. They can diminish lifetime earnings.”

He said all this will be a matter of negotiations as they decide whether to agree to 18 games. His comments made it easy to understand why Goodell said it is not a given. Sounds like it is a red line for the players. 

And White then added, “But as it stands right now, players have been very clear (they don’t want an 18 game season).”

So the battle lines seem to be drawn. The question now is what the players would want to give the owners an 18th game and whether the owners are willing to give them what they want or just stick to 17 games.

These negotiations in a few years are going to be interesting. The current deal expires in March of 2031 but the owners could call for new talks two years earlier. Whenever they starts, the 18-game season will be a major topic of conversation.

Joe Brady was upstaged when the Buffalo Bills recently announced him as their new head coach at a press conference. He replaced Sean McDermott , who was fired after the Bills lost their second playoff game to the Denver Broncos.

Stealing the spotlight was quarterback Josh Allen, who showed up for the press conference on crutches. He said he underwent surgery for a broken bone in his foot (fifth metatarsal) after the season ended, but he would still be playing with the injury if the Bills had made the Super Bowl. He suffered the injury on Dec. 21 in the second quarter of a 23-20 win over Cleveland but kept playing the rest of the regular season and two playoff games. The Bills announced he had a foot injury but didn’t reveal he had a broken bone in his foot.

“I had a little broken bone in there, so they went and took it out and cleaned it up,” Allen said. “Obviously, not an ideal situation. Painful throughout the weeks. But again, game day, different story. Just being able to put that to the side and go out there and play football.”

Allen said he was trying to take things one day at a time after the way last season ended as he committed four turnovers in the Denver loss and now has to adjust to a new head coach, although Brady has run the offense the last three years. He said if he’d made one more play against Denver to win the game, the team probably wouldn’t have made a coaching change.

“I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say I am still sick to my stomach about the way the season ended,” he said. As he enters his ninth season, Allen has had a frustrating career because he has yet to make the Super Bowl. Allen has taken the Bills to the playoffs seven years in a row but has  fallen  short of the Super Bowl.

Playing with the injury showed he is not only one of the best quarterbacks in the league but one of the toughest. And he should recover in eight to ten weeks and be ready for the offseason program. Now the question is whether Allen can finally take the Bills to the Super Bowl.

Mike  McCarthy and Joe Brady have little in common.

McCarthy, hired as the fourth head coach of the Steelers (his hometown team) since 1969, is an 18-year veteran who has coached the Packers and Cowboys and won a Super Bowl coaching the Packers against the Steelers.Brady, hired by the Bills to replace Sean McDermott, is a young coach who will become a head coach for the first time.

But they have one thing in common. They are taking over teams with large fan bases who aren’t into rebuilding and want to win now. Which puts a lot of pressure on both coaches.

Sean McDermott was fired because he kept getting the Bills to the playoffs but kept falling short of the Super Bowl. Brady has been the team’s offensive coordinator the last two years and by staying in house, the Bills’ message was that it doesn’t need an overhaul.

Buffalo already has one of the best quarterbacks in the league in Josh Allen and just needs a coach to get them over the top. The Pegula family that owns the team not only kept general manager Brandon Beane but promoted him to be the president of football operations. So anything less than a Super Bowl will be a disappointment, especially since the Bills have yet to win one although they lost four in a row in the 1990s.

By contrast, the Steelers have won six Super Bowls and Tomlin never had a losing season but also hasn’t won a won a playoff game since 2016 and won only one Super Bowl. Like Bills fans, they want to win a Super Bowl. Many weren’t thrilled with his hiring because they wanted a younger guy but he may win them over because he is a Pittsburgh native and got emotional at his first press conference talking about how it was special for him to coach the Steelers. But he faces more of a rebuilding job than Brady does even though he said the cupboard isn’t bare.

Although McCarthy is not expected to win a Super Bowl his first year, the fans will want at least a playoff victory.  So they both face  expectations to win now. 

The two conference title games came down to coaching last Sunday. The two losing coaches, Sean Payton of the Broncos and Sean McVay of the Rams, both made moves that backfired and help cost their teams a trip to the Super Bowl.

In the AFC game, leading 7-0, Payton decided to pass up a field goal on fourth-and-1 on the New England 14 in the second quarter. Jarrett Stidham’s  pass  went incomplete  and that was the difference as Denver lost to New England, 10-7 in a game that had little offense in the second half when a snowstorm made it difficult for either team to move the ball. Payton said after the game he regretted passing up the field goal. New England’s only touchdown was set up when the Patriots knocked the ball out of the hands of Stidham, who was playing for injured Bo Nix. Drake Maye passed for only 86 yards but ran for 65. Maye became the second quarterback to pass 20 times or more for less than 100 yards and score less than 14 points and still win a playoff game. Blake Bortles was the first in 2017 for Jacksonville against Buffalo. The victory sent New England to its 12th Super Bowl but will be underdogs against Seattle 

In the NFC game, Seattle outscored the Rams, 31-27, as Sam Darnold completed 25 of 36 passes to make thee Super Bowl for the first time. He is in his eighth season playing for his fifth team. But the Rams got some help by some questionable decisions by McVay. The Rams wound up punting with 39 seconds left in first half when McVay called for two passes that went incomplete instead of running the ball to take more time off the clock. That gave Darnold time to lead the Seahawks to another touchdown drive. And with five minutes left in the game, trailing by four points, he passed up a field goal that would have cut the deficit to a point and went for it on fourth down and a Matthew Stafford pass was incomplete. The Seahawks managed to run the clock down to 25 seconds before the Rams got the ball back, needing a touchdown instead of a field goal to win. They didn’t get past midfield and Seattle now goes to the Super Bowl as a 4.5-point favorite against the Patriots.