Massarotti: Five Most Interesting Matchups For Super Bowl XLIX
BOSTON (CBS) -- What we have here is a potential changing of the guard, a possible passing of the torch, a convergence of past, present and future. And we have it today.
The Patriots are the last NFL dynasty. The Seattle Seahawks may be the next one.
High noon.
Meet me in the desert.
And so here we go again, Patriots followers, a sixth trip to the Super Bowl during the 14-year marriage of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. How's that for putting the air back in the football? New England thoroughly dismantled the overmatched, under-coached and completely outclassed Indianapolis Colts at Gillette Stadium on Sunday night, rumbling to a 45-7 victory that will send Brady to his sixth Super Bowl, more than any quarterback in the history of the game.
Let's say that again.
No quarterback ever has led his team to six Super Bowls. Not one. Not Joe Montana. Not John Elway. No one.
Until now.
You are going to read, hear and see a great deal about the Patriots and Seahawks over the next two weeks, the annual and seemingly interminable gap that sits between championship weekend and the Super Bowl. The good news? This game has every chance to live up to the hype. It may even exceed it. The Patriots and Seahawks overlap and intersect in a variety of ways, and you will read about every one of them between now and Feb. 1.
Here are five that should interest you the most:
1. Yesterday vs. Tomorrow
This may sound like a media-fabricated storyline, but it isn't. Football is a territorial game. Over the last 14 years, no NFL organization has won more games – or Super Bowls – than Belchick's Patriots. And it really isn't even close. During the regular season, the Patriots have 170 victories while the next-closest team (Indianapolis) has 150. In the postseason, the gap between No. 1 (New England, 20) and No. 2 (Indy, 12) is even greater. A Patriots win would essentially give New England bookend victories on Tom Brady's career, staking out a period of dominance never before seen.
Peyton Manning has been to the playoffs 14 times in his career and failed to win a single playoff game in nine of those. Tom Brady has been the Patriots quarterback for 14 years and been to nine AFC Championship Games.
Enough said.
As for the Seahawks, they are tied with the Denver Broncos for most regular season wins over the last two years (25). They are the first team to even reach the Super Bowl in consecutive seasons since the 2003-04 Patriots. The Seahawks possess a ferocious defense and a young quarterback blessed with invaluable intangibles, and another Super Bowl victory would leave little doubt that Seattle is the center of the current NFL universe.
And who knows? It might even close the book on the Pats.
2. Tom Brady vs. Russell Wilson
We know, we know: the quarterbacks don't play against each other. But that is hardly the point. In the modern NFL, Wilson loosely qualifies as Brady reincarnate, which is to say that he has climbed to the pinnacle of professional football from relative obscurity. Like Brady, who was chosen the sixth round in 2000, Wilson was not a first-round pick. (He was taken in the third round in 2012.) Like Brady, who has Manning as a rival, Wilson has a far more heralded counterpart (Andrew Luck). And like Brady, Wilson has done nothing but win.
In his career, Wilson is 36-12 during the regular season, 6-1 in the playoffs. In matchups against quarterbacks who have won a Super Bowl – including one against Brady – Wilson is a perfect 10-0, a record that defies logic.
Does Wilson have a terrific defense supporting him? Sure. But at the beginning of his career, so did Brady.
3. Pete Carroll vs. Bill Belichick
Bill Parcells' replacement vs. Bill Parcells' disciple. How's that for a contrast? In New England, Belichick replaced Carroll, who replaced Parcells, who was the first step in turning the Patriots from a perennial laughingstock into one of the true model organizations in professional sports.
Now both of them have Super Bowl championships to their credit. And if it's true that a team takes on the personality of its coach, could there be two more stark examples?
The Patriots are calculating, businesslike, downright surgical. The Seahawks let it fly. Of course, the truth is that the teams are probably more alike than we might give them credit for – Belichick has turned his defense loose more this year while the Seahawks turned the ball over just one more time (14) than the Patriots did (13) - but you get the idea. The Patriots have a reputation of being thinkers. The Seahawks have a reputation of being hitters.
Off the field, Belichick grunts and snorts a lot. Carroll talks so fast he sounds like he is perpetually out of breath. Yet, both are regarded as defensive specialists. Fascinating matchup.
4. Russell Wilson vs. Marshawn Lynch
If you have ever read "The Education of a Coach," by David Halberstam, you undoubtedly remember this leading into the Super Bowl between the Patriots and St. Louis Rams:
"But all offenses had their needs, and at the core of the Ram offense was Marshall Faulk, so great a football player than he could control a game if you did not control him."
And so, weeks after losing to the Rams at Gillette Stadium, Belichick altered his defensive approach against a St. Louis offense that was deemed "The Greatest Show on Turf." Instead of making quarterback Kurt Warner the focal point of the Patriots defense, Belichick shifted the focus to Faulk. The rest, as they say, is history.
So why is this relevant now? Because the Seahawks pose a similar dilemma with running back Marshawn Lynch and quarterback Wilson. The consensus opinion is that the Seattle offense starts with Lynch, but the reality is that Seattle becomes much more dangerous when Wilson turns into a dual threat with his arm and legs. The Green Bay Packers learned that firsthand on Sunday when Seattle finally began running the read-option and Wilson began breaking containment. Once that started to happen, Green Bay broke down.
How Belichick approaches that duo will be interesting, to say the least. The preference here? Focus on Wilson. Lynch can't win it alone.
5. The Patriots vs. America
Might as well just get this out there, Pats followers: America is almost certainly rooting against you. In the last two weeks, Don Shula referred to Belichick as "Beli-cheat." John Harbaugh accused the Patriots of "deception." Then the Indianapolis Colts accused the Patriots of doctoring footballs.
America is so sick of the Patriots it isn't funny. They're sick of Belichick. They're sick of Brady, too.
Meanwhile, Wilson led an improbable comeback against the Packers, then openly wept on national television, further endearing himself to the American public. America loves Wilson. America loves Carroll's boyish enthusiasm. America loves the way Seattle plays because the Seahawks look and sound like they're having an awful lot of fun.
The Patriots look like they're showing up for a meeting. Belichick scowls a lot.
Yes, Pats followers, some of this is envy. Some of it is also the doing of the Patriots, particularly Belichick, who takes great pride in thumbing his nose at the establishment.
Of course, winning the game would be the biggest thumbing of all.
Tony Massarotti co-hosts the Felger and Massarotti Show on 98.5 The Sports Hub weekdays from 2-6 p.m. Follow him on Twitter @TonyMassarotti. You can read more from Tony by clicking here.
