For The Ed’s first official Super Bowl preview I decided to go with a good ol’ The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly cliché to break this game down.

The Good. Tom Brady and Matt Ryan are the front runners for MVP this year. That being said, Brady missed the first four games and his completely green back-ups went 3-1 which, in my opinion, doesn’t look great for Brady. However, he still kicked ass once he got back in. Matt Ryan played well all year but was also tossing the ball to an actual living god (I’m speaking, of course, of Tight End, Jacob Tamme) so you have to wonder how much of his success came from throwing to a guy that is pretty much impossible to cover by any one mortal. Either way, the score of this one should be similar to a DII Womens Basketball score.

The Bad. In a game that looks to be pretty evenly matched there does seem to be one bad match up. Against most teams the young, aggressive back seven of the Falcons is a plus, but not against the Pats. Brady fantasizes about young, aggressive defenses while making love to his literal super model wife. New England’s quartet of Bennett, Blount, Edelman, and Hogan have 24 more combined NFL seasons than the Falcon’s quartet of talented rookies, Campbell, Jones, Neal, and Poole. Not to mention Jalen Collins, Vic Beasley, and Grady Jarrett are only second year players. They say you can’t coach speed, but you don’t have to when you’re Julian Edelman or Chris Hogan and you’re basically coaches on the field.

The Ugly. This is the good stuff right here. The big boys, the hog mollies, the fat baby dandies (made that one up). Nate Solder will have to have his big boy panties on matching up with Vic Beasley but with the Pats quick passing game this match up will be influenced by how quickly Brady gets the ball out of his hands. However, Kyle Shanahan’s offense is vertical like Vince Carter so the ability to get pressure up the middle is going to be pretty, pretttyy, prreetttyyy important. Luckily for New England, a couple years ago they dipped into the vast, expansive depths of the Arkansas Razorback talent pool (HOLLRRRRR!!) and surfaced with Trey Flowers. He is a Defensive End by trade but the Patriots have turned him into a nickel package interior pass rusher where his combination of hyper active motor and explosive leg strength (55 inch vertical) helped him lead the team in sacks this year. Atlanta’s answer will need to be wily ol’ veteran, Alex Mack. Mack came to Atlanta from Cleveland to play for Shanahan after he left Cleveland and also probably just to leave Cleveland. He has been really good this year and has brought this line together. He will need to be active against Flowers most of the game considering how often Atlanta will play in sub-packages.

Bottom Line. To help form my professional opinion I played against New England with Atlanta on Madden ‘17 today. Gronk and Color Rush uniforms were involved which means my Madden version is already sure to be better than the real game on Sunday. For half time, I reflected on all of Lady Gaga’s nude scenes from American Horror Story. I played with Atlanta and got beat by the computer by the score shown above. If that game is any indication, LeGarrette Blount will have a decent day, rushing for 200ish yards and a few touchdowns  whatever. Although I’m (kinda) rooting (but really I don’t care actually) for my favorite city I’ve never been to (STRIP CLUB CAPITAL OF AMERICA Y’ALL sup Atlanta), I have to stick with Donald J. Belichick and Tommy Too Pretty to win this one. Hard to pick against these bros at this point.

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