Super Bowl

I suppose like me, you’re tired of listening to all the second-guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking over the Super Bowl last week.

While I enjoy pro football, I’m not into the fantasy end of it. Truth is, I have absolutely no idea how it works, and the longer I don’t know, the better off I figure I am, nor do I buy any of the team memorabilia.

While a Cowboy and Texan fan, I’ve been impressed the last few years about the Colts.
Did you notice how many oddsmakers and prognosticators picked them to win the Super Bowl. I could be wrong, but other than the fanatical Saints’ fans, no one picked them.

In all the two-week build up to the game, everyone had an opinion, an observation, a comment, or some sort of reflection.

I don’t recollect any of the writers picking N’Awlins. The comments ran from ‘Sorry, Saints, the Colts have too much,’ to ‘Why the Colts will win and the Saints lose.’

Whether you read the local papers, online comments, magazines, or listened to the radio, all were predicting the Colts. The night before the game, I ran into a friend at the store and he asked me who I picked. Like everyone except New Orleans’ fanatics, I said the Colts.

I remember one writer stating that even if a team jumped on Peyton Manning the first couple quarters, that he was bright enough to figure them out by the fourth quarter. That, announced the scribe, was the explanation for so many fourth quarter comebacks to win games.

While I enjoy the game, I’m certain no expert, but I thought about the old boy’s comment. If that were the case, why didn’t some defensive guru come up with a difference defense in the fourth quarter.

Now teams might be doing it. You couldn’t prove it by me one way or another. When I look at a defense, I see eleven guys trying to smash down eleven others to get to the ball. If there is a scheme there, I don’t see it.

I remember when football was ‘the biggest with the mostest the fastest.’

Imagine my surprise when a Saint player in the post game hoopla commented that the coach had not only put in a first have defensive scheme, but a third quarter one and a fourth quarter one.

Did it help?

Well, the Saints won, but there seemed to me to be enough ‘ifs’ to warrant a player muttering a short prayer of thanks for some plays.

What ‘if’, N’awlins had not recovered the onside kick beginning the second half; what ‘if’ the Colts
had not tried three successive running plays after they had stopped the Saints at the goal line;
what ‘if’ the Saint CB had been half-a-step slower and missed the interception?

The Colts were moving then, and maybe the psychological damage a touchdown would wreak among the Saints would have been enough for Manning to score again.

Of course, it’s like a horse race. You never know who might pull off an upset.

If they replayed the game next week, it could very easily go the other way.

The Saints are good; the Colts are good. Which is the better team? Is Manning the best quarterback, or is it Drew Brees? I don’t know, but I’d hate to have to live off the difference between them.

Some old codger friends of mine were discussing that question. One fairly perceptive gent said, “Put it this way. If you were in a tie game, which of the two quarterback would you most dread facing?”

I suppose the answer to that question provides about the clearest distinction between the two.