Super Bowl 2011: Steelers vs. Packers a Blowout Or a Nail-Biter?

In essence, both teams are pretty much identical.

They have great quarterbacks in Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers who can kill a team with the deep ball and make the secondary pay if they don't contain them.

They feature sneaky running backs in Rashard Mendenhall and James Starks who will burst through the hole when provided.

They boast elite linebacking corps who will make the quarterbacks' night a living hell and keep the running backs behind the line of scrimmage. For the Steelers, it includes James Harrison, James Farrior and Lawrence Timmons; with the Pack, there's A.J. Hawk and Clay Matthews.

Now, every aspect of the game won't be highlighted, but understand that this game could possibly be a repeat of Super Bowl XXXIV. The game will be played right down to wire and ultimately could be determined by a few yards.

From an outsider's point of view, the game is the No. 2 seed of the AFC against the No. 6 seed of the NFC. They'd think that the Steelers would win just because they are ranked higher. However, the Packers caught a few unlucky breaks in the regular season and could have been the No. 2 or even the No. 1 seed in the NFC.

Would they have still made it to the Super Bowl if Jay Cutler hadn't left the NFC Championship Game with an injury? It's too late to determine that now.

One would think that this game would be a shootout just because of the offensive talent on each team, but in this case, the defensive talent outweighs the offense. Both teams' defenses stand within the top three or higher (in most cases) in defensive categories throughout the postseason, Pittsburgh being the team with the best overall defense and best rush defense.

The determining factors in this game? Tramon Williams and Sam Shields. The two have combined for five of the six Green Bay picks in the postseason. The weakness of the Pack's D is that they let up an average of 212.7 passing yards per game. The Steelers: 155 on the dot.

This means that Ben Roethlisberger should have a field day in the passing game, but he needs to be wary of Williams and Shields. Not to mention Charles Woodson will be hanging out in the secondary, too. In order for him to be effective, Big Ben needs to throw to Heath Miller a lot. No deep balls. Drags, curls, screens etc. He can't be thinking Hail Mary at all.

You'd think that the Steelers defense would blitz all day to try and shake Rodgers, but when facing the blitz, he's just as good as if he were to spend a whole minute in the pocket. If they need to blitz, zone blitzes would be more effective, and just containing Rodgers will seal the deal.

The same goes for Roethlisberger—he can avoid the rush and gain positive yardage. The difference between Ben and Aaron is their size, that is, when they have a 250-pound linebacker rushing at them. Big Ben is as big as some of the linebackers, if not bigger. His size and mobility are what allow him to shake the defense so often.

This article could go on and on about how each individual matches-up to another and so on. What it comes down to is that this game will be a very close one that might not even break 40 points total.

Final Score: Pittsburgh 20, Green Bay 17