Super Bowl 2015: 10 Things To Know About The Big Game

Enough with the “Deflategate” crap already. Are you ready for some football?

Haven’t we heard enough about deflation, listened to Bill Belichick actually get mad and show some emotion for one, and even listened to Rob Gronkowski give us the real reason there were deflated footballs in the AFC Championship Game.

Yep, you guessed it. It’s all because of his spikes. Should have known better than to think some ball boy or even Tom Brady himself could have been at fault. Now that the seriousness over a pigskin has gotten way out of control, let’s focus on the game, not the peripheral stuff.

WELCOME TO SUPER BOWL XLIX.

There is more to this game than just two teams facing off with a silver trophy at hand. There is drama over two coaches who have been on the sideline in New England. There is talk about potentially the two best safeties in the game in Darrelle Revis and Richard Sherman. There is the Brandon Browner thought that his current teammates in New England should “go after” the injured players in Seattle. And of course, if that isn’t enough, there is Ines Sainz somewhere in the building wearing tight jeans and some outfit that is three sizes too small for her.

Thank the good lord for that, please. It appears nothing is off limits when it comes to Super Bowl week and the preparation for the world’s biggest stage.

Here are 10 things we all need to know about this game.

THIS GAME IS EXPENSIVE

CBSnews.com is reporting that the average ticket price for the game is up to $4,676, an increase of nearly 23 percent over last year, according to ticketing information site TiqIQ. Another ticketing company, search engine SeatGeek, pegs the average price at $3,262.

TiqIQ says this year's Super Bowl on track to be the most expensive game over the last six seasons.

Normally, the average ticket price starts to drop as the game approaches, but that isn't happening this year. The cheapest available ticket was selling for $2,125 last Thursday.

FIT TO BE TIED

The two teams have met each other 16 times, with the New England Patriots winning 8 games and the Seattle Seahawks winning 8 games.

The first game was played at Schaefer Stadium in Boston. New England, the then Boston Patriots won 31-0 in 1977.

The last game was played in 2012. Seattle won 24-23 at home.

ARIZONA WILL LOSE MONEY ON THE GAME

That is hard to believe considering the revenue a game like this brings in. Again, CBSnews.com is reporting you would think having the Super Bowl in your city would bring mountains of cash for all involved -- and that's certainly what the NFL would like everyone to believe. That isn't the case for Glendale, Ariz.

"I totally believe we will lose money on this," Mayor Jerry Weiers told ESPN. He's got a pretty good reason for that view. Glendale lost more than $1 million when it hosted the Super Bowl in 2008. Weiers' comments aren't sitting well with Arizona Cardinals president Michael Bidwill, who called Glendale's losses "a bunch of malarkey." Bidwill said Glendale actually got $13 million worth of "media exposure" from the game.

ESPN notes that this kind of friction between a government leader and a sports executive is rare. "The sight of a city official standing up to a league bigwig is so unusual, it's a little startling, like witnessing a dog walking on its hind legs," writes Mina Kimes.

BEAST MODE IS MADE FOR THE PLAYOFFS

In the 2011 NFC Wild Card game, Lynch made one of the most incredible runs in playoff history. With Seattle up 34-30 against the defending champion New Orleans Saints, Lynch broke free for a 67-yard touchdown run, breaking numerous tackles and delivering a vicious stiff arm on his way to the end zone. The noise from celebration in the stadium registered on a nearby seismograph, as the run became forever known as the "Beast Quake."

THE PATRIOTS KNOW GLENDALE WELL

The Patriots have now played in both games in Glendale.

They also played the New York Giants at University of Phoenix Stadium in 2007, losing in rather epic fashion to the New York Giants.

The Phoenix area also hosted Super Bowl XXX in Tempe in 1995, with the Dallas Cowboys beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-17 at Sun Devil Stadium. Arizona was supposed to host Super Bowl XXVII in 1992, but the league pulled the game out of Tempe when the people of Arizona voted against the approval and adoption of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a state holiday.

BEST VERSUS BEST

It's a cliche, and we're stating the obvious, but it can't be stressed enough.

The Patriots and their future Hall of Fame quarterback were the fourth-highest-scoring team in football during the regular season with 29.3 points per game, but they actually ranked second in football with 32.3 points per game from Week 5 forward.

Meanwhile, for the third season in a row, the Seahawks allowed the lowest point total in the NFL, surrendering just 15.9 points per game. Seattle also ranked first in terms of yards allowed and yards per play allowed.

What's most impressive about these two units is that nobody peaked as often as they did. In the regular season, nobody scored 40 as often as the Pats and nobody allowed 10 or fewer as frequently as Seattle.

TOM BRADY AND MIKE LODISH

Yes, the two have something in common.

Lodish and Brady will now be the only two players in NFL history to have played in six Super Bowl games. Of all the players ever to play in the NFL, Lodish will forever be linked.

The former defensive lineman's 11-year career, mostly as a reserve, featured action in four consecutive Super Bowls as a Buffalo Bill (1991-94) and then two more as a Denver Bronco (1998, 1999). The first four he was on the losing side. The last two ended with championships.

NEW ENGLAND IS THEIR THIRD NAME

Even Time Magazine is getting into the act.

When Billy Sullivan bought the rights to a Boston-based AFL football team in 1959, he was not the first to bring pigskin to Beantown.

At least three football teams had already run through the city: the Bulldogs, Braves, Redskins and Yanks had all either moved or folded. But Sullivan, determined to create a longstanding sports institution in Boston, held a contest, open to the public, to choose the team's name. Out of thousands of entries, a panel of sportswriters selected "Patriots" as the winner, an entry submitted by 74 people in total.

The name was meant to honor Boston's role in the nation's founding and the team's name stood as "Boston Patriots" until 1971, one year after the team was absorbed into the NFL.

THREE WINS BY THREE POINTS

The Patriots may be an NFL powerhouse, but in each of the franchise's three Super Bowl wins, they only earned a W by only three points. In Super Bowl XXXVI, the Patriots defeated the St. Louis Rams 20-17; in Super Bowl XXXVIII, they beat the Carolina Panthers 32-29; and finally, in Super Bowl XXXIX, they bested the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-21.

So it should come as no surprise that going into this year's game, bet-takers favor the Patriots to defeat the Seahawks by, you guessed it, three points. Not to mention that the Pats' win over the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship game was also a three-point victory. With this in mind, maybe good things really do come in threes.

BACK TO BACK

There have been seven teams that have won back to back Super Bowls. Pittsburgh has done it twice. If Seattle wins, it will join the list of superior teams.

The franchises to do so are Green Bay, Miami, Dallas, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Denver, and New England.