The Colts landed Mon­day night which some media pun­dits found to be a tad unusual. Con­sid­er­ing that the Steel­ers did the same thing a sea­son ago, it seemed to work out fine for them. Indi­anapo­lis and Chicago will endure the three-ring cir­cus that is Super Bowl Media com­ing up on Tues­day. Here are some key things to look for:

• Noth­ing involv­ing Pey­ton Man­ning. Seri­ously, are we going to learn any­thing new about this guy? The only thing I’d be inter­ested to here is if took any offense to Bill Belichick basi­cally blow­ing him off after the AFC Cham­pi­onship Game a cou­ple of weeks ago.
• Mar­vin Har­ri­son. The Mar­velous One does not like to talk and he does not dig the media. Per­haps a media mem­ber would be so bold to ask the fol­low­ing: “Hey Marv, are you being paid by the catch dur­ing your post­sea­son career? If so, do you feel like you’ve ripped off the team?”
• Tank John­son, Tank John­son, Tank Johnson.
• Rex Gross­man. Here’s a poten­tial question…“Rex, what does it feel like to be one of the five worst quar­ter­backs to play in the Super Bowl?”

It should be amaz­ingly awk­ward which will be delight­ful. In the immor­tal words of The Cars, let the good times roll!

 

Super Bowl week is set to begin. Remem­ber you Super Bowl neo­phytes. Super Bowls can be won or lost dur­ing this all impor­tant week. It will be inter­est­ing to see what unex­pected event encom­passes the big game which is noto­ri­ous for deliv­er­ing such a sit­u­a­tion in Miami. Stan­ley Wil­son of the ’88 Ben­gals was found passed out on the floor of his hotel room the night before the Super Bowl against Joe Montana’s 49ers. He never played in the NFL again.

Fal­cons safety Eugene Robin­son received the Bart Starr Award for good moral behav­ior hours before for Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami against the Bron­cos in 1999. Hours later, Robin­son was arrested for solic­it­ing an under­cover female over for oral sex. On Super Sun­day, John Elway made a point to pick on Robin­son for an 80-yard touch­down pass to Rod Smith. From there, Den­ver cruised to a sec­ond straight Super Bowl.        

The mes­sage the head coaches deliver will also be impor­tant. Take Patri­ots head coach Bill Belichick for exam­ple. Right before the Patri­ots took on the Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX, Belichick relayed the fol­low­ing mes­sage to his team in a pregame speech as shown on the won­der­ful NFL Films pre­sen­ta­tion of America’s Game:

Read the rest of this entry »

So Jason Gar­rett is the new offen­sive coor­di­na­tor or some­thing in Dal­las. Accord­ing to reports, he will become the offen­sive coor­di­na­tor or the head coach. Gar­rett, 40, doesn’t exactly have the cre­den­tials to run one of the most well known and infa­mous fran­chises in sports. The Cow­boys are not exactly send­ing the great­est mes­sage in the world by hir­ing a guy that the incom­ing head coach may not want. This hire would tell you one of two things I’m guess­ing. Either Gar­rett will be the head coach or Norv Turner will be the head coach with Gar­rett serv­ing as the offen­sive coor­di­na­tor. Memo to Jerry Jones: the 90s are over and they are not com­ing back. Let it go.

Speak­ing of Dal­las, Bill Par­cells spoke pub­licly for the first time since his retire­ment on Mon­day. He claims T.O. had noth­ing to do with his deci­sion to retire. I believe him…sort of.

For­mer Philadel­phia Eagle Vai Sika­hema tells Dono­van McN­abb to grow up…well, not to his face anyway.

I won­der what Lit­tle Brother Man­ning thinks about all of this Super Bowl non­sense.

Next week fig­ures to be a try­ing time for fans of the New Eng­land Patri­ots. They were on the cusp of going to a fourth Super Bowl in the past six years and amaz­ingly fifth in the last 10 years. The Team of the Decade held a 21–3 lead over Cap­tain Choke and his merry band of under­achiev­ers (which reminds me, has any­one seen Mar­vin Har­ri­son dur­ing the post­sea­son?). How­ever, Man­ning erased it and for now cast aside all doubt that he can’t win the big one.

There is a greater loser this week­end though…the San Diego Charg­ers. Imag­ine being a Charg­ers fan and exam­in­ing the play­off field in the AFC. San Diego drew the worst pos­si­ble matchup of any num­ber one seed in recent play­off mem­ory. Granted, it’s Marty Schot­ten­heimer but come on for a sec­ond.  You play your tail off for home-field advan­tage and gain a 14–2 record and you’re armed with the best player in the league. Your reward? The great­est coach-quarterback combo since Bill Walsh and Joe Mon­tana. Mean­while, the Colts do the elec­tric slide to the title game and then finally play a good half of foot­ball against a worn down Patri­ots team. Now all they have to do to win the Super Bowl is prob­a­bly score 21 points and shut­down Rex Gross­man. What a tough run. It must be nice.

The Charg­ers could have beaten the Colts, Bears, and/or Saints in their sleep. Instead, their Super Bowl hopes for this sea­son are sleep­ing with the fishes. 

 

We are nearly a week away from Pey­ton Manning’s crown­ing achieve­ment. A Man­ning hater could look at the glass being half full and say that the Colts’ magic car­pet ride is about to end. How­ever, I warn those peo­ple that just isn’t the NFL these days. What­ever you don’t want to happen.…well, con­sider it done. Plus, from a karma per­spec­tive if any team needed some­thing col­lec­tive­ly nice to hap­pen to it on a grand scale, this Colts team fits the bill.

On a side note, the for­tu­nate part about Man­ning win­ning the Super Bowl in Miami on Feb­ru­ary 4 is that per­haps much of the nation will be plowed under from alco­hol so they will not remem­ber the roman­ti­ciz­ing that cer­tain broad­cast­ers will do late in the game.  

Not that the game holds any fan­tasy impor­tance next Sun­day but we’ll still care about it…I think.