It’s the end of the line for the NFL season, the playoffs, and the weeks of easy open-thread posting here at Hot Air for one lucky blogger whose team went farther than he’d hoped early on.  It’s also going to be the end of the road for the amazing run of the Arizona Cardinals, who spent the regular season getting blown out by Philly, New England, and the Jets, and then besting Philly, Atlanta, and surprisingly Carolina to get to their first-ever Super Bowl.  They’ve turned into an impressive team, no doubt about it, and will give Pittsburgh a tough time.

However, in the end, the Steelers have been here before and have a defense unlike the Cards have seen this year.  They have also shown that they know how to take advantage of an off week, being the only bye team in this playoff cycle to advance to the championship games.  They’re rested, they’re experienced, and they will have too many weapons for Arizona to handle.  Since I gave Hugh Hewitt ten points and the Cards, I’ll predict a 28-17 victory for the Steelers today.  And the last time I ever gave anyone ten points in a Steelers game, Pittsburgh beat the LA Rams in the 1980 Super Bowl … by eleven points.

I’ll have family over today for a Super Bowl party, on the new HD TV system I bought myself for Christmas this year, so I won’t be live-blogging — but that doesn’t mean we can’t do live chat during the game!  If Jazz Shaw has forgiven me for giving his lovely wife the idea of torturing Jazz with the Mamma Mia DVD last night, perhaps he’ll moderate the chat room — or if not, maybe he’ll just insult me as often as possible from it during the game.  Either way, we’ll cheer the culmination of a great season by two surprising teams tonight, talk about the awful commercials, and celebrate the fact that Hot Air will continue its ongoing mission regardless of the momentary stumbles and obstacles, thanks to The Boss … and not the one performing at halftime tonight.  Be sure to join us!

Update: I forgot to mention that people need to register for free at Ustream to participate in our live-chat sessions. (And if the log-in prompt doesn’t come up in the chat box below, use this link instead.)