No Offense, but This Matchup Isn’t Super

Quoth the Raven, Shannon Sharpe.

“Deal with it, America.”

Quoth the Raven, Patrick Johnson.

“All I can say is, we’re going to the Super Bowl, and you don’t have to like it.”

Quoth the Raven, Sam Adams.

“It’s not going to be pretty.”

Quoth the sportswriter.

“Nevermore, dude.”

Nevermore can we trust that the NFL will use its five allotted months to produce at least one Super Bowl team worth our time.

Nevermore can we assume that the Super Bowl will contain more than a handful of players who can be identified without the use of dental records.

Nevermore will I pathetically exploit an Edgar Allan Poe poem.

OK, two more paragraphs.

The clock struck midnight dreary for the NFL here when the Baltimore Ravens defeated the Oakland Raiders, 16-3, to advance to the Super Bowl against their, yawn, New York Giant soulmates.

And, man, was it rapping-at-my-chamber-door scary.

At least the Giants had several breathtaking moments in a 41-0 victory over the Minnesota Vikings earlier Sunday in the NFC championship game.

Here in the AFC title snooze, the Ravens produced one.

A quick slant pass from Trent Dilfer in the Raider end zone to Shannon Sharpe, covered by Marquez Pope.

“I caught the ball and thought, ‘Good, I’ve given our punter a little room,’ ” Sharpe said. “Then the guy missed the tackle. And I thought ‘Uh-oh.’

“Then another guy missed a tackle. And I thought, ‘Oh-oh-oh.’ And then . . . “

We interrupt this memorable bit of play-by-play to explain that, despite being chased by three Raiders, Sharpe ran 96 yards before being pushed into the end zone by Johnson.

“He wanted to know why I didn’t turn around and block those guys,” Johnson said. “I couldn’t block three guys. So I figured I would push him instead.”

The touchdown, in the second quarter, gave the Ravens a 7-0 lead.

Supported by what its inhabitants claim is the best defense in NFL history, it was more than enough.

A couple of awful hours later, it was finished. The NFL gulped. The Ravens danced.

Art Modell, five years after unconscionably dragging the team from the embrace of a horrified Cleveland populace, was given a championship trophy.

Across the nation, a group of unexplainable Giants were celebrating around their own trophy.

Two strong defenses. Two dull and often-ineffective offenses. Two journeyman quarterbacks. Two unknown coaches.

Two long weeks.

The worst Super Bowl matchup in XXV years.

“If you like high-powered offenses, you won’t like it,” Raven linebacker Peter Boulware said. “But if you like gut-wrenching, old-fashioned football . . . “

But even guys breathing smoke through toothless smiles can occasionally score, can’t they?

The Ravens may be the first team in recent Super Bowl history that doesn’t have an end-zone dance simply because it hasn’t spent enough time in the end zone.

“We can’t score 30, we understand that,” Sharpe said “But we don’t need to score 30.”

Fine, how about 20?

“I’m thinking 15,” said Sharpe, laughing. “But tell you what. In two weeks, all those high-powered offenses are going to be watching the bad offense.”

It’s unfair, really.

Many of us marvel at a well-pitched, 1-0 baseball game. We sometimes cheer a great defensive basketball effort.

But a team that has better tacklers than passers? A team that can advance to the Super Bowl on one freak pass play and three field goals?

“I really want to thank Matt Stover, because without him, I would not be talking to you,” Raven Rob Burnett said of his kicker.

Oh, so it’s his fault.

“I don’t care what anybody wants,” Raven safety Rod Woodson said. “We’ll be there in two weeks whether you like it or not.”

This Super Bowl is going to be as difficult to hype as a New Jersey swampland, as boring as Jim Palmer.

To all of this add Art Modell, who had the audacity afterward to say: “I want to take this opportunity to thank all of my fans in Cleveland.”

They’ll certainly be watching him in two weeks in Tampa. Both of them.

“People may not like it, but they will still be paying to watch me play,” Raven Tony Siragusa said.

Some of it will be worth it, certainly.

The Raven defense, which set an NFL 16-game record this year by giving up only 165 points in the regular season, may indeed be the best in modern-day NFL history.

It was fun, for a moment Sunday, to watch them fly around after Oakland moved the ball to the Raven two-yard line at the start of the third quarter.

Tyrone Wheatley was stuffed up the middle on first down. Rich Gannon was chased down and sacked by Jamie Sharper on second down. Then harassed Randy Jordan dropped a pass at the goal line on third down.

The Raiders were held to a field goal, and all momentum was lost.

That was neat. But that gets old.

The Ravens’ leading rusher, Jamal Lewis, averaged fewer than three giant steps a carry. The Raven with the most total yards was the punter, Kyle Richardson, with 285 yards worth of surrender.

The most frequent flier on this day, Sharper, had as many combined tackles and assists (nine) as Raven quarterback Trent Dilfer completed passes.

Yep. Trent Dilfer and Super Bowl in the same sentence. Told you it was bad.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com