It is one of sport’s biggest spectacles.
The Super Bowl.
And the winner of the 52nd edition of the NFL’s championship game, post-merger, will be crowned Sunday night at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minn.
The defending champion New England Patriots, with perhaps the greatest quarterback of all time in Tom Brady, take on the Philadelphia Eagles, led by backup QB Nick Foles who replaced MVP calibre pivot, Carson Wentz, after he suffered a torn ACL in December.
The Patriots are favoured to win their NFL record-tying sixth Super Bowl (Pittsburgh also has six) and they should be.
Brady, head coach Bill Belichick and a few other players have been here before.
They have won the big game, they’ve lost Super Bowls as well, they know what this game — and all the hype that surrounds it — is all about.
All of the excessive hoopla, however, is new to the Eagles, who haven’t been to the Super Bowl since they lost to the Pats in 2005.
New England has been to five Super Bowls since then, including this year’s contest.
The Brady-Belichick era Patriots are 5-2 in the National Football League’ championship final, but those seven games have been decided by a combined 26 points, an average margin of victory of just 3.7 points.
That doesn’t guarantee a close game on Sunday but it is an interesting trend if nothing more.
Can anyone expect Foles to duplicate his outstanding performance in the NFC title game in which he threw for 352 yards and three touchdowns?
Don’t bet on it.
It would be a remarkable story, but I have a feeling that the most exciting part of Sunday’s Super Bowl will either be the commercials or the halftime show.
Brady will win his unprecedented fifth Super Bowl MVP award and record sixth title as the Patriots beat the Eagles 27-17.