Final Thoughts Before Super Bowl 49.

As Cousin Sal put it, "the public is a loser". The public, seeing what the Patriots did against the Colts compared to how the Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl, have decided to bet their money on the Patriots winning, with lots of offense.

But more often than not, the top-rated scoring offense lost in the Super Bowl, than the top-rated scoring defense. Last year is the perfect illustration of how a top scoring defense could shut down a top scoring offense.

Do you know why the Colts lost so badly? Aside from the fact that the Colts had a slightly worse scoring offense, they had a really lousy defense compared to New England.

Seattle's not like the Colts. Seattle's had the best scoring defense in the NFL, three straight years.

Case in point with the GB game: Seattle's defense stopped the NFL's top-scoring offense from taking full advantage of all those turnovers, including that last one with 5 minutes to go in the game.

In the year Pete Carroll took over, Seattle was 25th best in scoring defense; the following year they were 7th best; since then they've been tops.

In Pete Carroll's 9 years at USC, he had two years where they did not finish top-10 in scoring defense. His best scoring defense squad -- the 2008 team -- was one of the best in the modern history of the NCAA. His defense included NFL players like Eversen Griffen, Nick Perry, Shareece Wright, Rey Maualuga, Brian Cushing, Mike Morgan, Christian Tupou, Fili Moala, Jurrell Casey, Taylor Mays, and some guy named Clay Matthews III.

The points here are that scoring defenses win games, and Pete Carroll knows talent and can coach them.

Notably, scoring defense was the one stat I decided to ignore when I wrongly predicted that Oregon would blow up Ohio State. Where the stats showed Oregon with a very slight edge in scoring offense, Ohio State had a bigger lead in scoring defense.

Some fun stuff:

• 53% of Americans and 53% of the world who've voted in ESPN's poll, are rooting for the Seahawks.
• States with an NFL team, by a margin of 26 - 6, are rooting for the Seahawks, in ESPN's poll.
• Even Portland's IKEA is rooting for the Seahawks.
• It's all probably due to the Patriots being the most reviled team in the US and the world.
• Before last year's Super Bowl, it was revealed that Pete Carroll was the coach that NFL players most wanted to play for, by a huge margin.
• When New England lost during the regular season, they lost by an average of 13.25 points; when Seattle lost, they lost by an average of 5.5 points.

I suppose Deflategate served to push some more Americans on the side of the Seahawks.

I can see two sorts of outcomes here: The one where Seattle plays even for a half, but then comes out and dominates on both sides, pulling away with a big margin win; or alternatively, a tight game throughout, with Seattle pulling a late Wilson comeback special, taking the lead with a minute or so to go, and the LOB winning the game. If they lose, it'll likely be because they failed on the alternate scenario of a late 4Q winning drive (which is how they lost all four games this year).

31 - 17 Seahawks

(Alternatively: 21 - 16 Seahawks)