Zo Knows: A perfect Super Bowl is worth rooting for

As a Philadelphia Eagles fan, it’s blasphemous for me to say this, but it has to be said, especially for a fan of a single team like me. As bad I as I want my Philadelphia Eagles to hoist that Lombardi Trophy in February (well, I really would like to see it happen in January, but that’s a story for another day), a match between two undefeated teams is something that no NFL historian or prognosticator could have ever seen coming.

One team going 16-0, and then 18-0, and maybe even 19-0 doesn’t excite me anymore. Even though I was one of those who rooted against New England’s pursuit of regular season and entire season perfection, I got enough shock value out of their accomplishments, as well as their ultimate failure, to no longer be amazed by a single zero in the loss column come the end of the playoffs or the start of the Super Bowl.

However, the idea of two zeros in two different loss columns, at both the end of the regular season and the beginning of the Super Bowl is something that absolutely amazes. And how could it not?

We have never had a Super Bowl in which two perfect teams squared off? Can you imagine the hype that would precede such a game? How about the media coverage? Or the three P’s? The pride? The preparation? The pressure?

All of those things would be off the charts. Of course, the NFL’s two undefeated teams, entering Week 15, will see pressure in entirely different ways. The Indianapolis Colts have been here before. They have been on the precipice of going undefeated several times now. Never before have they come this close, but even when they have been 10-0 and 11-0, that never resulted in Super Bowl victories. In fact, their Super Bowl win back in 2006-07 came without a bye and with a second round game on the road. Still, they already have a Super Bowl win. So as bad as the undefeated pressure would be, the pressure to not have another stunning season and collapse in the playoffs would be a weight unlike any other, despite having faced that same problem many times before.

As for the pressure on the 13-0 New Orleans Saints? Eh, not so much. You’re talking about a team that once had its nickname altered by its own fans to the pejorative “Aint’s.” The Saints haven’t won anything of any significance at any point in their history. They have very few players of not from their team’s past. They don’t even have a whole lot of big name draws on their current roster. After Drew Brees, the star appeal for the Saints gets pretty bleak. That’s why coming into the season the only pressure facing the Saints was can Brees challenge Dan Marion’s record again?

But then there’s the city of New Orleans. While there were never any real expectations for this year’s Saints team, making their undefeated run icing on the cake, the battered city of New Orleans loves this football team. And to see them do something that very few teams in the history of the NFL have been able to accomplish would bring joy to a city that needs it almost more than any other major metropolitan area in the United States.

Can you imagine the external emotion of New Orleans vs. the purposeful mission of the Colts in the Super Bowl? It’s a dichotomy that could drive two weeks of Super Bowl coverage on its own, but when you add the idea of both teams being 18-0 in the biggest game in all of sports, how can one not be excited by the anticipation of such a game?

Sure, we have 3 more games to go in the season, and the Colts head coach has already publicly put zero emphasis on having an undefeated season. But I won’t let premature assumptions dictate what I’m about to say, and I certainly don’t associate Jim Caldwell’s emphasis on going undefeated with the opinions in that Colts locker room. Thus, I have no problem with anticipating an undefeated Super Bowl. The Colts have done away with most of the AFC’s elite, and it is incredibly hard to imagine anyone outscoring the Saints in the Superdome. So while I know it’s early, and that prognostications like this look stupid on seconds after their made, but a “perfect” Super Bowl between the Colts and Saints is what we’ll get in February. Say I’m getting ahead of myself if you want to, but I’m not further ahead of myself than those two teams are ahead of the competition.

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