Colts and Buccaneers to meet in Super Bowl XXXIX

So, finally, the Super Bowl is over and we can all move on … to making outrageous… So, finally, the Super Bowl is over and we can all move on … to making outrageous predictions about next season.

Sure, the Pro Bowl has yet to occur, no schedules have been set and the draft is a thing of the distant future, but it’s truly never too early to predict where teams will finish next year.

It’s been pretty well documented that, in the last couple of years, teams that made the big game haven’t had success the next year. Both the Patriots and Rams failed to make the playoffs after winning their conferences two years ago. And this season, both of last year’s Super Bowl teams – the Buccaneers and the Raiders – failed even to have winning records. So recent history definitely isn’t on either team’s side.

In football, it’s all too common for teams to trade places in the standings. Only Tennessee, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Green Bay made the playoffs this year and last year. The Jets, Giants, Browns, Raiders and Falcons all finished last or tied for last in their divisions this year after making the playoffs last year. So it’s quite clear that winning two years in a row is a very difficult thing.

Since an appearance in the Super Bowl always seems to lull teams to sleep the next year, especially the first-timers, the outlook isn’t too bright for the Panthers. The Patriots, on the other hand, have already gone through a post-Super Bowl sputter and are unlikely to do it again.

A second strike against Carolina is its division, which probably has the toughest competition from top to bottom. The Falcons were 3-1 with Michael Vick starting games this season, and if he can stay healthy, chances are they’ll easily make the playoffs.

Tampa Bay has something to prove next season after the embarrassing 7-9 record it posted after winning the Super Bowl. Most likely, it will come out of the gates smoking and win the division, or at least a wild-card spot.

And you can never quite count out the Saints. If New Orleans ever lives up to its potential, it will be a force to be reckoned with. But if history has anything to do with it, the Saints will finish right around 0.500 and probably deal one or two crucial blows to contending playoff teams, one of them most likely being Carolina. Dallas is sure to get better in the East, but unless they change quarterbacks, the Cowboys won’t be a major contender. (Although I, as well as every professional analyst, said the same thing about Carolina and Jake Delhomme earlier this season.) Minnesota will most likely improve as well, thus supplanting the aging Packers atop the North.

The Eagles should contend once again, as they seem to every year, despite always appearing to get worse, and slip into the playoffs to join the Cowboys, Vikings, Falcons, Bucs and Rams.

The AFC should see five of the six teams from this year’s playoffs returning. The Patriots will win the East again, but only by edging out the J-E-T-S, Jets; Jets; Jets! With the return of a healthy Chad Pennington, New York will provide some serious problems for New England, but Bill Belichick will find a way for his team to finish ahead of them, and the Dolphins, who will undoubtedly collapse at the end of the season for the 80th consecutive year.

Both the Colts and Titans will make the playoffs in a hard-fought AFC South battle for the third straight year, and as long as they stay out of a quarterback controversy, the Ravens should stave off a much-improved Steelers team.

In the west, Denver will take the crown as long as its key players – Jake Plummer and Clinton Portis – stay healthy. Kansas City will think about challenging, but ultimately realize that a Pop Warner defense is not going to get it done and then fade off into the sunset. The second wild card spot should be up for grabs between the Chiefs, Steelers and Jets, although I would put my money on New York.

The conference title games should repeat the low-scoring battles of the games this year, with Indianapolis beating the surprise Ravens on a game-winning field goal by a liquored-up, idiot kicker, and the Bucs making the Super Bowl after Quincy Carter’s head explodes all over Bill Parcells.

And I present the winner of Super Bowl XXXIX, one year in advance: the Indianapolis Colts, by the score of 41 to 10 over Tampa Bay.

Raymond Newby is a staff writer for The Pitt News as well as a Colts fan. Shoot down his optimism at rsn4@pitt.edu.