E-Mailing It In

Each week, Dan Rubenstein, Ty Hildenbrandt and Jacob Osterhout will jump on e-mail and riff about various subjects in the news offered up by SI.com's Jimmy Traina.

Traina: The NFL season kicks off Thursday. Give me your Super Bowl prediction and regular-season MVP.

Rubenstein: As much as it pains me to say so, I can't go against Sage Rosenfels here; he has all the tools. OK, fine, if not Rosenfels, I'll go with an allegedly healthy Tom Brady to have another MVP year if his knee and shoulder are up to the task. If for no other reason than the Patriots have adopted a spread offense in a league that sees every team running the same offense, thereby rendering the Patriots sneaky (original). He simply has more opportunities to put up ridiculous numbers, and most likely, wins. The Super Bowl pick is tougher. I'll go Patriots-Packers here, but I'm nowhere near confident in any NFC being balanced enough to make the Super Bowl. Each supposed contender has a glaring flaw, but the Packers seem about as balanced offensively as anyone, so I'll begrudgingly say Patriots 27, Packers 21. And I'll also say how excited I am for all of the Favre stories that we'll be subjected to during those two weeks.

Hildenbrandt: Wow, Traina, going with the hard-hitting questions right off the bat. I like your moves. As far as the ridiculously loaded AFC goes, and at the risk of being terribly cliche, I'll go with the Patriots. Now that the Brady-to-Moss machine is functional, I think the Pats probably have the best shot. The NFC is anyone's guess. The Eagles seem to be a trendy pick, but having lived in the Philly area my entire life, I've learned not to fall into the trap of picking them to make the Super Bowl. The Vikings are another sexy pick with the addition of Brett Favre, but the thought of that storyline being cycled and recycled for the entire postseason is enough to make me queasy. To be honest, I have no idea who to pick, but I'll go out on a limb and take the Packers. Official Super Bowl prediction: Patriots 31, Packers 27. (By the way, Tom Brady is always my MVP pick. Always.)

Rubenstein: Well, Ty, this is uncomfortable. Now people or going to think we're sitting here giggling and coordinating our Super Bowl picks. This just got weird.

Hildenbrandt: Very skeevy, indeed. It's not like we're sitting around in our underwear, whispering sweet nothings about Tom Brady. No, nothing like that at all ...

Osterhout: Ahh, yes, the NFL season in back. Thank God. I was getting tired of watching the Yankees win. I will not go with the popular pick of the Pats and the Eagles. Tom Brady is as fragile as a china doll, and while it might always be sunny in Philadelphia, the Eagles don't win Super Bowls, no matter how talented the team may be. No, I'm going with the Steelers vs. Vikings. Every season, I get duped by Ben Roethlisberger's offseason drama and underestimate the Steelers. I won't make that mistake again this year. And I think that Favre will be get injured in Week 3 and Sage Rosenfels will lead the Vikes to a Super Bowl victory. The MVP with be Adrian Peterson. I really wanted to say the Redskins would make the Super Bowl for the NFC, but I just didn't think anyone would take me seriously, and that's depressing.

Rubenstein: I knew it ... Rosenfels GETS IT DONE!! I do the same thing with Roethlisberger, too, and yet, I can't take the Steelers this year. I have no rational reason other than a crippling fear of picking against Brady/Moss/Belichick when they're hitting on all cylinders. Can't go Vikings even though most of the pieces appear to be there. Favre simply gets in too much of the way for me.

Hildenbrandt: In a year where it seems the "Wildcat" seems all the rage, I think it's at least worth noting that the Vikings could go anti-Wildcat and line up both Favre and Rosenfels in the same backfield to create the ultimate slow, white, aging quarterback tandem. They could call it the Llama -- it'd go against all conventional wisdom and blow people's minds like the "Bizarro Jerry" episode of Seinfeld

Hildenbrandt: By the way, that "it's always sunny in Philadelphia" bit ... totally untrue. According to the National Climatic Data Center, Philly receives only 56-percent of possible sunshine. So, there's that. The Jason Campbell Experiment is easily in my top five of Current Quarterback Experiments With Possibly Unsettling Results. Rounding out the top five, in no particular order, are Matt Stafford, JaMarcus Russell, Kyle Orton and a super-secret Browns quarterback to be named later.