How’s Your Stomach?

I’ve listened to the yahoos rant on sports talk shows in Florida, Pittsburgh and Boston.  I’ve read the commentary and analysis ad nausea on ESPN.com, Sports Illustrated.com, NFL.com, blahblah.com, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and The Tribune Review.  I know Meghan Cowher’s season scoring average for Princeton’s basketball team.  I’ve faithfully followed Brett Keisel’s journal (nice job, but it’s not to be confused, at least on a literary level, with Memoirs of A Geisha.) 

The overwhelming consensus among the football intelligentsia is that the Pittsburgh Steelers will win the Superbowl. No sweat.   That’s what makes me nervous.  That’s why my stomach is doing back flips like the Dolphins at Sea World.

I’ve tried Yoga.  I’ve tried Mylanta.  I’ve tried drinking.  I’ve tried listening to the soothing sounds of the ocean.  I’ve tried Sweatin’ to the Oldies.  Nothing seems to relieve that nagging Pittsburgh Pessimism in the pit of my stomach.  That impending sense of doom that perhaps only Pittsburghers have. 

For example, when you heard that Steelers safety Troy Polamalu “tweaked” his ankle on Thursday—weren’t you ready to throw up your hands and, say, “There goes the game.  Just our luck!”  When you saw Joey “The Mouth” Porter run his yap, didn’t you want to scream, “Please, Joey, shush!  Don’t give the Seahawks more bulletin board material!”  All week long, Seattle has been cast as the ugly stepsister that just happened to score an invitation to Pittsburgh’s Superbowl party, and Joey had to go and insult her even more.

But hey, maybe Joey knows something.  Seattle?  What have they done?  Their division, the NFC West, is full of creampuffs—the 49ers, the Cardinals and the Rams, none of whom won more than six games this season.   That’s six gimmes for the Seahawks.  During the regular season, the Seattle beat two playoff teams (Indianapolis and the New York Giants) and lost to two playoff teams (the Jaguars and the Redskins).  In the playoffs, they beat an offensively challenged Redskins team and the one-dimensional Carolina Panthers, who were down to their fourth-string running back.  They remind a lot of people of the Denver Broncos.  Good but not great.  And you recall what the Steelers did to Denver.

On the other hand, the Steelers are on a roll.  They are battle-hardened, having dominated the crème de la crème of the AFC to get the big game.   They have the intangibles going for them, too.  Big Ben’s game-saving tackle against the Colts, known as the Immaculate Redemption.   The Bus’s homecoming.  Jupiter is aligned with Mars.

26 hours to game kickoff.   Pass the Maalox.