Well, now we know who will we will get tired of reading and hearing interviews with before the February 7th Super Bowl. Peyton Manning will lead the Indianapolis Colts into Miami for the second time in four years to play the New Orleans Saints, the franchise’s first ever appearance. As I think I wrote a few weeks ago, I don’t hate either team, so this is a match-up that is fine with me. Coming into the playoffs, especially with the Bears not competing, I started rooting against certain teams. As long as I draw breathe, I will hate the Green Bay Packers, so I was very happy when they lost. I’m more than tired of the NFL’s coaching version of Gollum (from Lord of the Rings), Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots, so I was actively rooting against them.
Then came this past weekend - coming into the Sunday games, I really had no great feeling between the Colts and the New York Jets, but as the game went on and the Jets took an early lead, I was worried that the Jets would make the Super Bowl. First, New Yorkers don’t need any reason to be obnoxious, and the Jets in the Super Bowl would have given them anyone reason to brag. Also, I feared that the Jets didn’t deserve it – they just got hot at the right time instead of being the best AFC team.
Fortunately, I didn’t need to worry – the Colts defense clamped down on the Jets and Manning shredded the Jets’ formerly number one rated defense to end up winning convincingly. By the way, one of the local Chicago sportswriters (I think it was a new guy) wrote one of the dumbest things I’ve read recently. He wrote that Peyton Manning needed to win another Super Bowl to solidify his legacy and Hall of Fame standing. Stupid! Peyton Manning has a Super Bowl victory (unfortunately over my favorite Bears), and he is rapidly putting up passing statistics that rank with the very best. On top of that, he is a “friendly” personality both to the press and to the average fan, which can be validated by the number of quality of his commercials. Considering that two of the best quarterbacks in the history of the game – Dan Marino and Dan Fouts – have one Super Bowl appearance between them and neither have a Super Bowl ring, but both are in the Hall of Fame, it shows that while having a title helps a QB get into the Hall, but a quarterback is not penalized if he played on bad teams (see also Peyton’s dad, Archie Manning).
The second game was the true gem – everyone knew that the Minnesota-New Orleans game would be a shootout, but the game actually justified the hype. Brett Favre had a big game for the Vikings, but, as was their nature during the season, turnovers hurt them badly. It is awfully hard to win a football game with 5 turnovers, two of which came in the Red Zone. Saints QB Drew Brees threw 3 touchdown passes, but most of the Saints’ points came off the turnovers. Vikings running back Adrian Peterson is one of the best runners in the game, but he fumbles too much, and until he can keep the fumbles to a minimum, he cannot be considered the best in the game. And Favre, for the second time in three years, threw a big interception in the NFC Championship Game (the first came two years ago against the Giants when Favre was still with the Packers). The Vikings were driving for a game winning field goal when Favre showed questionable judgment and gave it to the Saints, who went on the win in OT.
Like the Packers, since the Vikings play in the Bears’ division, I wanted to see them lose. Add to that the Brett Favre “am I retiring or aren’t I” stories, and I was really rooting against the Norsemen.