Balls have been inspected; let’s get ready for classic Super Bowl

PHOENIX

Take a deep breath. Have a glass of water. Relax.

Everyone’s balls are safe and accounted for.

Two weeks later, we are certain of this: The 108 footballs available for use in Super Bowl XLIX today between the Seahawks and Patriots at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., were taken into custody Friday for final inspection and air pressure tests.

I’m assuming each was also fitted for a device that will sound an alarm if any are found in a bathroom.

The NFL put an equipment manager from the Chicago Bears in charge of the balls.

It was either him or Gil Grissom.

The league did add extra security to ensure the footballs aren’t tampered with, which I’m sure made the hundreds of poor souls who won’t attend the game now that brokers and resale sites have reneged on tickets already sold feel much better about things.

Or not.

Hey, can we play the game now?

It sort of has a chance to be an all-time classic.

Super Bowls and close scores aren’t anything new of late, considering five of the past seven have been decided by six points or less. It’s also true that the Patriots have engaged in some of the best Super Bowls in history, and everything about this particular matchup suggests it could find a place among those landmark outcomes.

It could prove better than the Patriots losing to the Giants in Glendale in XLII, when David Tyree’s improbable catch refused New England the perfection of 18-0. Better than the Patriots beating the Rams in XXXVI, when Tom Brady had replaced Drew Bledsoe during the season and the Tuck Rule reared its ugly head en route to the championship.

Better than XXXVIII, when the Patriots topped Carolina and Adam Vinatieri’s foot again proved the difference. Better than XXXIX, when the Patriots won their third Super Bowl in four years by defeating the Eagles.

The line (pick’em) suggests a coin-flip game. The fact both quarterbacks (Tom Brady with three and Russell Wilson last year) have won the Super Bowl suggests nerves at the most critical position will be limited. The same goes for both coaches (Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll) and their experience in preparing for such a moment.

You don’t always get the league’s best teams in a season’s final game. We do today, when the two franchises that exist among the most hated outside their regional areas are also the most deserving and talented sides.

The best offense against the best defense.

The Hall of Fame quarterback against one of the league’s rising stars.

The coach against the coach he replaced in New England.

“We’ve talked about a million different things over the course of the last couple weeks,” Belichick said. “You know, ‘Here’s all these plays, and if these 50 things happen, we do this, they do that, we do this, they do that.’ I think it just comes back to boiling it down to what are the most important things that we need to do going into the game. There’s a ton of information, but it’s not all equally important.

“With all due respect, for us, whatever we have or haven’t done in the past — the Super Bowls we’ve won, the ones we didn’t win, championships and so forth — it’s not about that right now. This is about an opportunity for this team at this time to be special this year. Again, whatever did or didn’t happen, we don’t really care now at this point; we care about what happens (today) and what we’ll leave as the legacy and what the mark of this team is.”

Here’s the part that will really upset fan bases other than those of Seattle and New England: A Super Bowl meeting today could be followed by others between the two.

Seattle is about to make Wilson a very rich man, but it can remain an elite team at the same time. The Seahawks have hit far more than they have missed in the past five drafts, and Carroll is hardly afraid to trust young players.

Consider: Of those Seahawks who started the NFC Championship Game against the Packers, 14 are 26 or younger and one is over 30.

Some of Seattle’s best defensive players — Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor — are all under contract through at least 2017.

In New England, Brady is closer to the end than the beginning, but the Patriots have done what few great teams can over time — consistently conquer the league’s salary cap and build successful rosters to put around their biggest star. They offer the ideal business model in a league that promotes parity.

“A wise man once told me that once you start counting (championships), that’s when you’re done,” Seattle linebackers coach Ken Norton Jr. said. “You know when you’re young and you’re trick-or-treating, and you’ve got all your candy. While you’re getting the candy, you didn’t count them, but when you got home when you were done, you started going through your candy and started dispersing. That’s when you’re done.

“So right now, we’re still collecting the candy, and we can’t count quite yet.”

Today, Seattle goes for a second straight huge piece of candy.

The mother of all Snickers bars.

The Patriots go for a fourth.

It has all the makings of an all-time classic, now and perhaps in years to come.

Best of all, everyone’s balls are inflated and ready.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on “Gridlock,” ESPN 1100 and 100.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.