Seattle should be the underdog. They beat the 5th seed and the 6th seed at home, whereas Pittsburg beat the 3rd, 1st, and 2nd best AFC teams on the road.
The NFC stunk this year, and the NFC West was hilariously bad. I think Seattle will play well, because as a team they obviously have some strong chemistry. Alot depends on how they prepare for Pittsburg--the Steelers have redefined themselves as a spread offense in the playoffs, taking advantage of the natural assumption by opposing Ds that the Steelers would want to run the ball 55 times. Now, Seattle has two weeks to prepare for the new Steeler's offense, and Cowher owes the football gods a good chokejob, he's behind on his choking payments.
Should be a good game at least, alternates every year--last year, pathetic Superbowl because of Eagles stupid time management, two years ago classic between Pats and Panthers, three years ago pathetic Bucs/Raiders game, four years ago Pats/Rams classic, five years ago pathetic Ravens/Giants game, six years ago Rams/Titans classic, seven years ago Denver blowout of Atlanta, eight years ago nailbitter Denver over Green Bay...
Hey, one for the thumb in '06....although Dan Rooney is about the only one associated with the team that had remotely anything to do with the first four...
Here's a question I thought of not too long ago...is the probability of an underdog winning outright roughly equal to the probability of the favorite winning by double the spread (or more)?
What made me think of this question was the thread where readers were asked to pick the games with the spread...being an old Pittsburgher I wanted the Steelers outright, not just the Steelers with the points...although I wasn't brave enough to actually say so...I was wondering what an equivalent bet would be if the bettor wanted the favorite...