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LLT
01-11-2011, 12:58 PM
XLV intrigue: Ranking 16 potential matchups for Super Bowl in Dallas
by Don Banks
sportsillustrated.cnn.com
January 11, 2011




Paring down to the elite eight in the NFL playoffs means 16 matchups remain possible for Super Bowl XLV in Dallas next month. Here's at least one potential storyline or reason to care about each and every Super pairing, as we rank them from most intriguing to least appealing....


Steelers-Packers -- This matchup would revolve around the showdown between the best quarterback to come out of the deep 2004 draft class (Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger) and the best quarterback to come out of the disappointing 2005 draft class (Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers). And it's worth noting that neither was the first passer off the board in his draft. Big Ben would be a victory away from his third Super Bowl ring in just seven seasons, while Rodgers would be chasing his first.

Steelers-Falcons -- If this pairing comes to fruition, Pittsburgh and Atlanta will have opened and closed the 2010 NFL season facing one another. For a finale, we could do worse than a repeat of their first meeting, Week 1 in Pittsburgh. The Steelers won 15-9 in overtime when running back Rashard Mendenhall snapped off a 50-yard touchdown run around right tackle on Pittsburgh's first offensive play of the extra period. If there is overtime in the Super Bowl for the first time ever, I seem to remember we have some new rules governing that particular situation.

Seahawks-Steelers -- Where have we seen this one before? Try five years ago, at Detroit's Ford Field. The Steelers beat the Seahawks 21-10 in Super Bowl XL, in a coaching matchup of the since-departed Bill Cowher and Mike Holmgren. Pittsburgh earned its long-awaited fifth ring, and the Seahawks came away feeling as if all the game's close calls went against them. And upon further review, they had a pretty valid point.

Steelers-Bears-- Somehow, despite the Bears and Steelers being two of the NFL's historic old-guard, family-run franchises, they've never met in the postseason. And the teams first played one another in 1936, so you would have thought the Rooneys and the Halas/McCaskey clan might have run into each other a time or two in the playoffs. Maybe the Bears and Steelers would go the throwback uniform route in the Super Bowl and make the whole thing way retro cool.


Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/don_banks/01/11/super-bowl-xlv-scenarios/index.html#ixzz1AkotcdXx