by Dennis Krivda

Created on: January 30, 2011   Last Updated: February 04, 2011

As if anyone has to remind NFL fans - or even casual observers of American culture - Sunday, February 6, 2011 marks the day that millions of viewers around the globe will tune in to watch Super Bowl XLV.

This year’s “Big Dance” under the slotted dome of Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas pits two storied franchises against one another. The Pittsburgh Steelers, owners of six Lombardi Trophies, take the gridiron across from the three-time Super Bowl winning Green Bay Packers.

Each legendary in their NFL accomplishments, the Packers won the first Super Bowl, while the Steelers have recorded the most Super Bowl victories in NFL history.

With the massive amount of talent both franchises bring to the field, Super Bowl XLV promises to deliver a bare-knuckled brawl between two powerful heavyweights of the National Football League.

Obviously, predicting a winner of this year’s premiere pigskin battle requires quite a bit of deep analysis. But analyzing statistics from the 2010 regular season is a bit like twisting the various colors of a Rubik’s Cube.

It’s true!

Like fumbling with Erno Rubik’s rainbowed block of mental torment, dissecting the germane stats from the 2010 regular season can frustrate even the biggest football brains to the point of hair-pulling insanity. Even a cursory review of those numbers shows that the various squares between the Steelers and the Packers remain simultaneously scrambled and opposed to one another with maddening consistency.

And when some stats do align, only one side of the puzzle squares up while the other side becomes even more jumbled.   

For example, the Packers fielded a respectable pass defense that ranked fifth by the end of the regular season, but the Steelers didn’t wholly rely on their passing game to win football games. Similarly, Green Bay struggled to reach mediocrity in returning kick-offs and punts in 2010, but Pittsburgh sometimes allowed even mediocre NFL franchises the advantage of a huge kick return at the most inopportune moments during some critical games.

Like a Rubik’s Cube, the important numbers from the 2010 regular season seem to continuously shift around, and they never fall perfectly into place for a straight-up Steelers-Packers comparison. No matter how they’re twisted, those routinely reliable indicators of NFL performance simply refuse to line up enough to reach a sensible, gratifying solution for the most dedicated football analyst.

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