Expect the unknown on Sunday

By Nick Pinkerton

A team that always secures 12 or more wins in a season goes up against a franchise that, up until now, had never hosted a conference championship game. Sunday will tell the tale of the often predictable versus the unpredictable.

Yet the Super Bowl, for many years, has given us a great deal of unpredictably.

Sure, the Steelers were supposed to beat the Cardinals last year, but in that fashion? Santonio Holmes' tiptoe catch in the back of the end-zone countered an improbable comeback from Kurt Warner and his trio of thousand-yard receivers.

What about the year before, when of all players, David Tyree makes a circus catch on fourth down on what became the game-winning drive in a Giants' 17-14 upset over the heavily favored Patriots? David Tyree? Who Dat!?

In summary, Sunday's game will either come close to or top the Super Bowls mentioned above or it will be a total blowout by either team -- Ravens vs. Giants in SB XXXV, anyone?

Though the time from kickoff to the last whistle has gotten longer and the commercials have been less than stellar as of late, there's nothing we can do to escape that feeling when we all have our eyes on the same channel and witness these "I can't believe that just happened" moments that the Super Bowl gives us year after year.

There's something about the most popular American sporting event every year that takes everything we've seen from the regular season and blows it out of the water.

Even in the biggest of Super Bowl butt-kickings, we're all watching as someone on the field returns a kickoff or punt for a touchdown or two, delivers a "He wasn't even in the picture!" hit or threads a perfect spiral through double coverage.

And, as in the case of David Tyree and Santonio Holmes, even MVP's of Super Bowl past like Desmond Howard and Dexter Jackson, anyone can be a hero on this particular Sunday.

Who is it going to be this year? Perhaps it will be Pierre Garcon, a Colts wide receiver who has broken out this season and has spent the last few weeks helping his Haitian family members and their countrymen.

Or, on the other side of the ball, maybe someone on the o-line will make a game-saving fumble recovery; I'll go with starting left guard Carl Nicks who, four years ago, was getting back into football at a junior college after two years away from playing Division I.

My best goes out to Nicks, whom I had the fortune of meeting and attending class with at Monterey Peninsula College.