just got my first facebook invite for the event: "slutty superbowl party" - same guys who threw the "santa clause sluts" Christmas party. when will the madness end...

I will take the points and the dirtybirds

I am leaning toward just taking the under here. I know these are high powered offenses, but I'd rather bet on a regression to the mean than an extreme.

I'm leaning Falcons over Patriots, 34 - 27

A Falcons win would mean so much for the city of Atlanta / state of Georgia. Pulling for the boys in red and black.

As much as I'd love Goodell having to hand a trophy to Brady, I'm taking the Falcons on this one.

Also, 57 might actually be low. A 37-24 type game isn't out of the realm of possibility here, or 44-36 if you take both of their scores from this past week.

the loss is still fresh, so I say fuck the falcons.

next week and the week after, I'll be meh about it. I just hope for a game more like the 2014 super bowl, as opposed to last year's snore fest.

I'll say the same thing I said in the playoffs thread: pats over birds: 35-32.

based upon last night's game, Brady for Super Bowl MVP & league MVP. I think if Blount has a tough time and they use Lewis like they did in the divisional, he'll win MVP of the game.

I say give it to Brady, but that's probably the salty cheesehead in me talking

Falcons are healthy. 27-24 Falcons---only cuz I've been waiting since '98 for another shot and endured almost 2 decades of falcons hating from my Patriots/steelers/ Manning-team friends.

Falcons have weapons all over the field, Pats secondary is definitely questionable. That being said Bill always has a plan, I have to place my trust in the man. Not to mention average QB's have put up notable numbers on the Atlanta Defense all year, so NE should have an absolute field day with the ball. Pats -2.5 and the over. Pray for my bank account

gotta support the underdogs (and any team but the pats)!

Brady4MVP

TB12 forever and always

notmysuperbowl

The homer's are coming out in this thread and the Northeast bias is really shining through. Time to counter with some SE bias.

Falcons 56 Patriots 20

Alright, that maybe a little ambitious, but, I think it will be close and it will come down to a game winning drive by Matty Ice, who has won more games in Boston than Tom Brady.

The end of the dynasty has come.

Rise up mothafu**as.

I'm taking the Over. The Falcons are already getting 6 so I'm not sure if I want to touch the spread. I think the Pats win though. They are the overall better team.

Falcons win outright. I'll take the under as well.

I'll be the obnoxious Pats guy again. The way I see it you need at least 1 of the following 2 things to win: An elite QB and/or an elite Defense.

Elite QBs The Falcons have an elite offense but an elite QB they have not (sorry, one good season doesn't make up for a 75-47 TD-INT ratio over the last 3 seasons). Having said that, there is no question the ATL offense is better than NE's. New England have Tommy Boy though, and he is, along with Rodgers imho, the only true elite QB in the league today. So I look at it like this, ATL gets the nod on the offensive side of the ball but the absence of an elite QB makes the difference between the two teams smaller than what people think.

Elite Defense If you don't have an elite QB you damn better have a great Defense. Denver, Seattle, Baltimore, New York are just a couple examples of recent winners. Now, I'll quote one site which puts it pretty plainly: "23 Super Bowl champions have ranked #1 or #2 on defense, compared to 17 champions that ranked #1 or #2 on offense". The Pats are the #1 scoring Defense, ATL is currently ranked #27. There, no need for any fancy shmancy ESPN statistics adjusted for SOS and SOV. The best defenses win against the best offenses more often than the other way around.

Boils down to this: ATL has a slightly better offense while NE has the better Defense but while the Offensive rankings are #1 and #3, the Defensive rankings are #27 and #1 respectively. New England wins 31-21, I do think this will be a great game.

Falcons have a lot of momentum and one of the highest powered offenses. Matty Ice is going to be tough to beat, even with the Pat's veteran head. I'm going with the Birds.

The whole #1 defense argument is laughable when you've played the league's easiest schedule of offenses.

Getting to face a down-year at best Carson Palmer, Osweiler twice, Tyrod Taylor twice, Charlie Whitehurst, Cody Kessler, Landry Jones, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Jared Goff, Bryce Petty and Matt More will make even an average NFL defense look like the '85 Bears. The first big test of the Pat's defense was last week, and they passed. Albeit without the NFL's best rusher for 3/4 of the game. It remains to be seen if the Pat's can consistently stop a high-powered offense.

What's that you say, the Falcons' offense really isn't that great? They just posed the best offensive season since the Greatest Show on Turf and did it against the league's most difficult schedule of defenses.

I think it'll be a great game with both defenses struggling to stop great offenses. Pat's should be the favorite due to the Brady / Bill combo, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Falcons pull off an upset.

I know it is last minute, but I looked around on TripAdvisor and could not find any reasonable deals to my liking. I also looked into AirBnB but they are either extremely expensive or way too far from the venue. HotelsDifferently has some good deals in the city but those are mostly 5 star hotels and out of my budget. Any help would be much appreciated. This will be my first Superbowl btw! Thanks people!

Wow.

Jesus Christ what a game that was. Every SB game with them nearly gives Pats fans a heart attack.

Wow did the Falcons blow that one

That game was bananas.

I mean, holy hell.

I put a bet on Patriots.

Though it was over before halftime.

Still in shock by how dramatic it was, but not shocked that they won....

I mean, when they went down 7 pts, I was like, ok, no big deal... when they went down 14 pts after the fumble, i was, ok, just need to get a stop... defense played great... Patriots driving again, although ATL defense was playing great as well...

Then the Pick 6 happened...it was at that point that I thought....ok, we are about to see one of the greatest games of all time. Pats had turned the ball over twice in a half when they almost NEVER do that.

Pats were moving the ball and the defense for the most part was keeping ATL in check and getting some stops, so I thought we were still in it...

Low point: We get a critical 3 and out to start the 2nd half, Edelman gives us great field position and the offense does nothing AGAIN. ATL drives down the field and makes it 28-3... I still managed to text anyone that would listen "Don't bet against Tom Brady." at this point. I knew that there best would come out and even if we didn't win, we could make it interesting if we stopped shooting ourselves in the foot.

I think at this point, any normal team would have folded. But the Patriots just kept going and started on another methodical drive, this time finally reaching the end zone, only for them to miss the Extra Point... at this point is was 28-9, still less than a 5% chance, but the computers don't factor in Brady's clutch history, so I was thinking we have a shot. When they couldn't punch it in on their next drive but they at least kicked a FG to make it a 2 score game (16pts) I thought it gave us a big jolt of hope. 2 scores can happen very fast. At this point, most of my family was bitching, my cousin was making annoying comments...all I sad was "It's not over. Never bet against Tom Brady."

I knew, if they could hold ATL again (and the Pats D gave us no reason to think that they couldn't) and that we could get one more TD to make it a 1 score game, the rest would take care of itself. ATL would tighten up and the Patriots have the best person on the planet to lead that comeback.

What was shocking was the miraculous Julio catch that got them in FG range, followed by an incredible sack and holding penalty. When that happened, I was already losing my voice and I knew we were getting the ball back with a chance to make it a 1 score game :-)

When they got the strip sack and punched in another TD, I knew it was time :-) I cant even remember the sequence clearly.

The rest was a blur...I was screaming, ready at each stage to be disappointed (ok, we got a TD to tie it, but still needed the 2pt conversion).

The coin toss went Pats and it was game over before I could blink.

Just amazing...simply amazing.