The Steelers are going to squash the Cardinals this Sunday.
That's the opinion of a narrow majority of the celebrities who participated in the 20th annual Scripps Howard Celebrity Super Bowl Poll.
See the celebrity picks in the attached photo slideshow or at the bottom of this page.
Out of the 100 famous folks who made predictions, 49 believe that the Pittsburgh Steelers will win Super Bowl XLIII, while 48 picked the Arizona Cardinals. Three celebrities jokingly picked other teams or couldn't make up their minds.
Many celebrities said they picked Pittsburgh because of its vaunted defense.
"Pittsburgh's defense is going to get Arizona quarterback Kurt Warner," said Fox TV host Bill O'Reilly, who sees Pittsburgh winning, 24-17.
O'Reilly may be on to something. He's correctly predicted the winners of the last five Super Bowls in the Scripps Celebrity Poll.
Olympic speedskating champion Apolo Ohno predicts the Steelers will win, 31-21.
"Pittsburgh's defense is amazing," Ohno said. "Warner might get sacked hard during the game and those Pennsylvania boys are coming hungry. Their defense is just too strong for Arizona's offense."
Other celebrities picked the Steelers for more eclectic reasons.
Actor Alan Cumming said, "Pennsylvania came through for us in this election. Arizona, not so good."
Mike Hayden, the CIA Director, likes the Steelers to prevail, 27-17.
"The Cardinals are on a roll, but it’s tough playing against a team of destiny," he said. "Blocking is blocking, and tackling is tackling."
If the Steelers win, it will be the 13th time in 20 years that a majority of the celebrities has picked the Super Bowl winner. But last year only 36 of the 100 celebrities participating correctly guessed that the New York Giants would upset the New England Patriots.
This year's Celebrity Poll was the tightest since 2000, when 42 celebrities incorrectly predicted that the Tennessee Titans would win Super Bowl XXXIV, while 41 celebrities correctly picked the St. Louis Rams.
The quarterback for that Rams team? Warner.
Most of the celebrities who picked the Cardinals this year considered Warner as the difference-maker.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice picked Arizona, "because quarterback Kurt Warner is No. 1."
Tennis star Serena Williams likes Arizona to win, 21-17, because, "Kurt Warner usually does something amazing near the end of a game. He's an incredible quarterback."
The celebrity who picks the winning team and whose guess at the final score comes the closest to the actual final score wins the Scripps Howard Super Sage Award. Last year's winner was Dr. Pat Robertson, who picked the Giants to win, 20-14, just three points off of the actual final score of 17-14.
This year Rev. Robertson picked Pittsburgh to win, 35-22. If the Steelers do win by that score, Robertson would join tennis legend Martina Navratilova (1998) and actor Dennis Farina (2005) as the only two celebrities in the history of the Scripps Howard Celebrity Super Bowl Poll to have picked the winning team and gotten the score exactly right.
