Super Bowl pick (if there's still a game) | Agganis Lives

I didn't think "NFL" and "understated" could ever be used in the same sentence.

But man, I can't remember a Super Bowl week this quiet. Where's the bulletin board material? Where's the outrageous behavior? Or the tacky music video? Unless somebody's going out tonight on a cocaine bender, extramarital booty call or bipolar episode, it's going to wind up as the quietest pregame week ever.

Even people I was counting on to mouth off, like Brenda Warner and Anthony Smith, have disappointed me. We've had to depend on the glamourous crackpots of PETA to provide any smidgeon of controversy (and Jimmy Kimmel to provide some laughs).

Maybe it's just the economy. Half the media types who have delivered the hype have lost their jobs over the past year (as well as, thankfully, the TMZ types). And there are fewer big corporate parties this year - the folks who arrived in Tampa for the big game will just have to hit the strip clubs like the rest of the peasants (and stay out of Pac-Man Jones' way).

Oh, that's right. There's a football game going on, too, although the pundits seem determined to treat the Cardinals as a bunch of interlopers who have no business being on the same field as the mighty Steelers.

That's not true...at least when Arizona puts in the effort. Larry Fitzgerald is a bigger, more physical load than anything Pittsburgh's secondary has faced in the playoffs so far, and I think Kurt Warner can throw for 300 yards on the Steelers.

Problem is, Pittsburgh can pound it or pass, and I don't think the Cardinal defense can deny both. Ben Roethlisberger's been to this dance before, and he won despite not playing all that well. I trust he'll play better tomorrow.

Cinderella's glass slippers get chucked into the bay, and will wash up on the shore of McDill AFB by the time minicamp season rolls around.

STEELERS 34, CARDINALS 20.