NEW ORLEANS — Bread pudding. That’s has been my weakness here at Super Bowl XLVII. I arrived along with my wife Beverly on Sunday evening and Sunday evening I had bread pudding at the hotel restaurant.
Monday’s dinner at SoBou brought on more bread pudding, and of course, we had a crew dinner with Westwood One Tuesday night at Pascal’s Manale in the Garden District. Pascal’s is 100 years old and their bread pudding was the best I’ve had… so far! The week is just half over after all.
I bring up this weakness for bread pudding because if you are a follower of The Lofton Files, you’ll remember back in December when I talked about the weakest link on all the division-leading teams. So let’s look back at that and see what our Super Bowl teams have done to get here – in spite of their weakness.
I highlighted that the Baltimore Ravens needed to shore up their run defense. At the time, they were 23rd in the NFL and yielding 123 yards per game on the ground. Well, it hasn’t gotten much better in the playoffs, where it’s the best versus the best. In three playoff outings thus far, the Ravens are giving up 128 yards per game rushing. So if the Ravens are going to win Super Bowl XLVII, the run defense anchored by 6’5″, 364-pound nose tackle Ma’ake Kemoeatu and All-Pro defensive tackle Haloti Ngata, who’s just a mite smaller at 6’4” and 330 pounds. Suffice it to say, that’s a lot of anchor, and those two guys will be the key to allowing the Ravens’ linebackers to make tackle close to the line of scrimmage. In last year’s Thanksgiving HarBowl, which was obviously before the pistol entered the Niners arsenal, the Ravens sacked then-49ers quarterback Alex Smith nine times.
Which provides me with a very nice segue to my December 6th comment on the 49ers, who at the time seemed to have two starting quarterbacks, with Jim Harbaugh’s comment about going with the hot hand at the position.
Weeks of media dissections later, and it’s fairly obvious Harbaugh got it right! Though maybe it’s more hot legs than hot hand. When Colin Kaepernick rushed for 181 yards against the Green Bay Packers in his first playoff game, it blew the minds of defensive coordinatiors around the football world. But pick your poison. If you keep your eyes on Kaepernick, Frank Gore will run right over you. Crowd the box with extra defenders? Kaepernick will pierce you with the play-action passing game. So much for the quarterback controversy.
So the 49ers have turned their weakness into a huge strength, while the Ravens’ have managed to succeed even while their defense continues to give up yards in the ground game. Either way, both teams are here and it’s going to be a great game and, even better, it’s only mid-week, so I’ve got plently of time for my weakness: bread pudding.
— James Lofton
James Lofton will serve as the NFC sideline reporter on Sunday for Westwood One’s coverage of Super Bowl XLVII. Our coverage begins at 3 PM Eastern with Super Bowl Preview, followed by the pregame show at 4 PM.
