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Pats in way of Steelers ‘dynasty’
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Today's Super Bowl 49 caps a National Football League season marred by scandal with a compelling clash between Seattle and New England that promises to clear away the clouds.
Each team can cement a place in Super Bowl lore with a victory.
Fans partied on Saturday night around Phoenix and at the NFL Experience gridiron theme park near the University of Phoenix Stadium in suburban Glendale, Arizona, where the game will kick off.
But the teams were tucked away, their preparations set.
“Everything is done,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “The hay isn’t in the barn ever around here, but everything is done.”
Patriots coach Bill Belichick didn’t even hold a walk-through practice on Saturday, saying the Pats are “as ready as we’re going to be”.
The Seahawks hope to become the first team to win back-to-back Super Bowls since the Patriots did so a decade ago, while New England can become the sixth team to win four or more titles — a list led by Pittsburgh with six.
It’s a dazzling matchup of old guard versus new as Patriots quarterback Tom Brady takes on Seattle signal-caller Russell Wilson, and an intriguing clash of coaching styles in Belichick and Carroll.
But this season, the NFL’s championship spectacular follows a season of turmoil for a league accused of complacency or even conspiracy in its handling of issues ranging from domestic violence to concussion dangers.
The Patriots themselves will take the field trailing a whiff of scandal, with the league still investigating whether they intentionally deflated footballs to gain an advantage in their playoff triumph over Indianapolis on January 18.
Carroll, on the surface, is the warm and fuzzy opposite of Belichick, but has produced Seahawks teams that even the Patriots coach admires for their “relentlessness”.
Now Carroll’s Seahawks will try to usurp the Patriots’ throne as the league’s dominant team, gained with Super Bowl titles in 2002, 2004 and 2005.
The Patriots will be playing in their eighth Super Bowl overall, and seeking to reassert themselves after falling in the title game in 2008 and 2012.
Brady, 37, can join his boyhood idol Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw as the only quarterbacks with four Super Bowl wins.
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