Your Super Bowl Matchup is set...

And what a yawner the Conference Title games were. In the early game, Pittsburgh jumped out early against Denver and never looked back, winning 34-17. In the late game, the story was much the same, with Seattle beating Carolina 34-14. Some thoughts:

- Well, the Jake Plummer self-destruction happened one week later than I thought. As was thought all along, if you take away the Broncos running game and make Jake "The Snake" Plummer beat you, he can't. He had 2 bad INT, and a couple of fumbles, resulting in 4 turnovers, and the Broncos never really had a consistent offense for most of the game.

- I think Ben Roethlisberger might be a top 5 QB. I know they predicate the offense on the run, and I know that they have a great defense. But the guy is 26-4 as a starter. 26-4. Last year in the conference title game against New England he absolutely laid an egg, and was one of the big reasons they lost, but throughout these playoffs, he's made good decisions and made great throws. Pittsburgh absolutely shredded a very good Denver defense, and that surprised me.

- I've never really been a huge Jerome Bettis fan, but I can't help but cheer for him and respect him, even if he's not really a very good player anymore.

- Troy Polamalu is the best safety in the NFL. That play he made today where Denver ran a screen, and he got blocked and was on the way down to the ground, but still made a tackle to stop Denver short of the first down was awesome.

- Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I think if there was a key play early on, it was when Denver ran the ball on 3rd & 10 at the 12, already down 10-0. They basically conceded for the possession to just try a FG. Again, I could be reading way too much into it, but I can't imagine that'd be a big help to Jake Plummer's confidence.

- I think Seattle played basically a perfect game, aside from the Steve Smith punt return for a TD. They controlled the ball, Matt Hasselbeck was very efficient, and they played great defense. They were able to put Jake "Daylight come and you got to" Delhomme, which forced him into some awful throws, and they had great coverage on Steve Smith. Great performance by the Seattle defense.

- For the second straight year, injuries to the RB position really hurt Carolina. With Stephen Davis and Deshaun Foster already out, they were having trouble running the ball, and then Nick Goings got hurt, and they couldn't establish any type of running game with Jamal Robertson.

- I think the Super Bowl will be better than either of these conference championship games. I mean, it can't get much worse, can it?