Tackling Super Bowl XXXV: Who will win?

I admit, I am no expert when it comes to the NFL this season. And I am probably the only columnist who will discuss the Super Bowl having watched not one second of last Sunday's conference championship games. But in the day-long trek from Durham to College Park and back, with CBS radio sports providing a comical rendition of the Minnesota meltdown, I managed to learn two things. First, New York is a lot better than I or pretty much anyone else was giving them credit for a week ago. Second, the Giants are not good enough to win against the top-rated defense in the NFL in a week-and-a-half. I will experience no joy when Art Modell hoists the Lombardi Trophy on Super Sunday. Coming from Los Angeles, I know how frustrating it is to watch mediocre-to-terrible franchises up and leave in the middle of the night and then suddenly become contenders in only a few short years. It was painful last season with the Rams, and it was an entirely uneasy feeling this season with the Raiders. Enter the Baltimore Ravens, a team that went on the road to stuff the championship aspirations of both Oakland and AFC top-seed Tennessee. I am not one to be dazzled by dominating defenses. I always preferred the high-scoring attacks of the 49ers and Cowboys to the Monsters of the Midway. But I also recognize that if there is one thing that can be relied upon to win championships, it is defense. Ask Denver. Ask Tennessee. Ask Oakland. Sure, Sunday was a tremendous coming-out party for a quarterback who was out of football only a short while ago. But much of the credit for Kerry Collins' magnificent afternoon can be given to the game's whipping boy, Wasswa Serwanga. Like I said, I was not fortunate enough to watch Collins make Serwanga look like an amateur on a football field, but I would venture to guess there is not a single person who thinks the Giants can move the ball anywhere near as effectively against Ray Lewis' Ravens. It will not be pretty, it will not be enjoyable, but this Super Bowl will be won by the Ravens. They have no offense, but who needs one when the opposition scores 10 points per game? Their defense has the talent, it has the intangibles and it knows how to win games. At some point during Super Sunday, Shannon Sharpe will turn to one of the Ravens defenders and he will ask one question. How many points do we need? With a less-than-spectacular offense built around Collins and Tiki Barber, the response will probably be less than a touchdown. And that's something that even Sharpe, Trent Dilfer and the Ravens can manage.