XLI

Now that was a heckuva Super Bowl. Well, at least the first quarter. It's hard to remember a more eventful quarter of football, particularly a Super Bowl. I don't think all the fumbling can be blamed on the rain. There was a lot of nerves going on and, of course, a lot of randomness. Yes, the R-word. The thing that people hate more than anything else.

Anyways, it was clear in the first half that the Colts were a much better team. The Bears were very lucky to be so close. It was clear in the second half that Tony Dungy didn't want to blow out his good friend Lovie Smith. The AFC is just a much better and deeper league right now than the NFC. It reminded me of watching Florida crush Ohio State. The SEC has faster, more physical players than the Big Ten. Maybe you can say the same thing about the AFC and NFC.

Speaking of The Gators, I was completely rooting for Chicago because of their Gator connection. So it was particularly painful to watch Rex Grossman. At this point, even I have to admit that it looks like Rex just doesn't have the mental abilities to play quarterback in the NFL. He clearly has the physical talent. His decision making is terrible and you can just see him struggle with the design on some plays. Sometimes I see Rex and get flashbacks to Ryan Leaf...

Super Bowl

It's about time for my first Super Bowl post. It's really pretty easy for me to make a pick. This is The Year of The Gator after all. So on one hand we have Gator QB Rex Grossman leading the Chicago Bears vs. Tennessee QB Peyton Manning leading the Indianapolis Colts. Clearly I must pick Chicago. 2EZ.

Actually I generally enjoy watching Indianapolis play. It's a pleasure to watch Peyton Manning play at a level that few QBs have ever played at. Peyton is often compared to Dan Marino. It's a very fair comparison, at least in terms of talent and accomplishments. So it was nice to see Peyton beat everybody's golden boy Tom Brady. QB is without a doubt the most important position in football, but too much credit and blame are often assigned to QBs. People who thought Manning "can't win the big one" assigned too much blame to him, just like all the Tom Brady worshipers gave him far too much credit for the Patriots' success. It was all too similar to the kind of things people used to say about Dan Marino and Joe Montana.

Anyways, while it would be a little surprising to see Chicago win (or any NFC team win the Super Bowl,) it would be even more surprising to see them win because of Rex Grossman. They will clearly try to run the ball down the throat of Indianapolis. Rex also seems to have realized that he doesn't have to do so much to wins games for the Bears. They have tremendous talent on defense and solid players on offense.

On the other hand, it would not be shocking at all to see Peyton Manning as Super Bowl MVP. Chicago has been vulnerable through the air. They play a lot of Cover-2 and rely on their front four to get pressure on the QB. That will be tough to do against the Colts fast paced offense.

But hey, Florida was a big underdog against Ohio State a few weeks ago, and we all saw how that turned out... So I will predict that Rex will indeed play well and that Peyton Manning will make some costly mistakes. Chicago 30, Indianapolis 24.