Super Bowl XLI
I have to admit, I couldn’t make up my mind. One minute, I was convinced Peyton Manning would finally get his Superbowl, the very next I couldn’t see any way Brian Urlacher and the Bears defense could be overcome.
My indecision got pretty bad. I am a color analyst for the Basketball games at my school, which are broadcast online (www.spartanwebradio.ca), and when asked who I thought would win I even went so far as to flip-flop on-air within two weeks of my original pick. First, I stuck my neck out and said the Bears would win, providing of course Rex Grossman could avoid ‘screwing it up.’ Then, two weeks later I switched my pick, to let all 26 listeners know that a) I can’t make up my mind and b) I know very little about football. Both are actually true.
Finally it was gameday. I had a party here, at my slammin’ bachelor pad with all of my buddies, which meant minimal seating and constant battles for the snacks in the middle of the room. Before kickoff I secured a bet with my roommate Brock, putting a breakfast at White Spot on the line. I said the Bears would win, allowing myself yet another flip-flop.
I was feeling pretty good about my split-second decision when Devin Hester ran back the opening kickoff. ‘Points on the board without Grossman having to do anything,’ I thought to myself. I also flashed back to the opening kick-off of the BCS Championship game, but managed to push that to the back of my mind. It wasn’t long into the game before I realized that there are reasons I couldn’t make up my mind in the two weeks leading up to the game. After each team fumbled several thousand times and neither quarterback looked as though they were going to get it together, my buddy Dave noted calmly that “at this point, absolutely anything could happen.” We all knew it was true, to the very core of our souls.
This helped me make sense of my previous indecisiveness. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what to do. I had to watch roughly 56 hours of pre-game footage before I could get a prediction out of Marino, Sharpe and Esiason, who all picked the Colts. I then noted that Marino never won a Superbowl, and thus, immediately discredited his opinion, and felt a little better about it. Also, Shannon Sharpe resembles a horse, and Boomer Esiason is named Boomer; I felt I could discredit them all.
Peyton hit Reggie Wayne wide open in the big house and I was forced to endure the wrath and scorn of my peers. The group in attendance was split almost 50-50 in terms of allegiances, some were monetary, some otherwise, and so when either team made a big play, it felt appropriate to let our opposition know how much they sucked.
I feel lucky to have missed the half time show. I was cooking steaks for my guests and missed the entire thing. I also ended up missing the third quarter. When I sat down I asked what I had missed, expecting to hear something exciting. “Vinateri missed a field goal,” Scott said. “What?” I asked, as though I believed this impossible. You have to know that Peyton had a flashback to the days of Mike Vanderjagt as he watched it sail wide.
Boring fourth quarter, Grossman sucks worse than I ever thought he could (so much for mistake free football) and Peyton finally gets his ‘big game’ status. I think Marino hates him now. Dan probably wanted Peyton to join him in the ‘best QB to never win the Superbowl’ category, so that he could have more street cred. Right now Dan Marino is probably very lonely.
It’s pretty funny that Peyton didn’t even look happy when the Colts won. He didn’t even seem to be relieved. It was almost as though he knew he should have won one already, and now that he did, the expectations of the moment were so great he couldn’t derive any emotions. It is quite a contrast to the other images I have of superstars winning championships. Michael clutching the NBA Championship and bawling. Wayne Gretzky looking as excited as I’ve ever seen any human as he hoisted the Stanley Cup for the first time. Kobe perched a top the scorers table and whooping it up with the crowd. Shawn Michaels defeating Brett ‘The Hitman’ Hart in the storied ‘Ironman’ match in Wrestlemania 12 and then falling to his knees in equal parts jubilation and exhaustion. Okay, maybe not the last one. The point is, that exact moment is what Peyton has been working his whole life for. That was the absolute pinnacle and Peyton barely gave us a smile. At least he hugged Tony Dungy.
I think I’m happiest for Tony Dungy and not just because he gave that speech about Christian coaches. Okay, a little because of that speech. I mean, it’s not everyday a guy wins the Superbowl and says that he did it “the Lord’s way.” I’m not certain what that means, but I respect Dungy a lot. Considering all he has been through in the last year and a half, it was one of the better sports moments in as long as I can remember to see him with the Vince Lombardi trophy.
Posted on February 12, 2007 12:00 AM
Comments
jon, you blessed, blessed soul. i was honestly more glued to the description of the party in your pad than the actual game highlights. your bach pad steak-cooking, snack-squabbling escapades were a treat for my eyes. seriously, garbage game.
oh, and i think what dungy meant by 'the Lord's way' is to celebrate a lot, even after only catching 2-3 yard passes, whine about any call made and put an average to mediocre (and thoroughly overrated) quarterback in a false spotlight against a young team that lucked their way into the bowl. im pretty that's the Lord's way.
Posted by: matty mckechnie | February 12, 2007 7:05 PM
Loved the article.
Matty is nuts to say that Peyton Manning is an average to mediocre, overrated quarterback. With his stats, he will blow away pretty much all QB records by the end of his career. Tony Dungy is also a very classy guy with a lot of character and he deserved the Super Bowl win.
I agree though that the Bears lucked their way in. Should have been the Saints ...
Posted by: Jesse Renaud | February 12, 2007 7:58 PM
Uh yeah....
I'm not a fan of Peyton (us Americans get tired of him pimping every possible product), but I am going to say that he'll probably go down (statistically) as the best QB of all time. To deny that makes you sound kinda silly (sorry Matty).
Was he the MVP of Super Bowl XLI? Not hardly. Those 2- & 3-yard passes are necessary on a rain-slogged field, but the MVP should have gone to Joseph Addai & Dominic Rhodes. They're the 2 guys who controlled the ball throughout the game & propelled the Colts to victory.
Am I a Bears fan? Most assuredly. Did I cry in my bourbon as I watched the vaunted Bears Defense play like the Colts Defense did in Week 13? Yes I did & the weeping became more uncontrollable as the game wore on. I blame Urlacher & Co. for the loss more than I blame Rexy -- Rexy sucked for the last half of the season & it was the D who won them games. So when it came down to it, the only person who performed well in this game was Devin Hester & that lasted a whole 10 seconds.
Damn....
Posted by: Adam P. Newton | February 13, 2007 6:33 AM
gentlemen, gentlemen (i'll take the bob ham approach, here) - well, i'm mainly addressing dear jesse and dear adam newton. jon, please add any thoughts if you feel im being too harsh.
i wasn't trying to slag manning (well, okay - yes, i was) but the truth is and jonny and i have discussed this fact many times, for any real athlete to gain MY respect, the proof has to be in the pudding. stats, at the end of any career, look nice but the question will always remain 'how did they perform in clutch situations?'
i know it was rainy and the bears defense was good but COME ON! i KNOW peyton manning can excel and fire a pinpoint, precision pass, threading the needle between 3 defenders short, mid range or deep. i know that qb's like him can steer the ship of a game. i know he's capable of doing that! but in the big game? rain? tough d? i don't care. he wasn't there.
just like donovan mcnabb wasn't there two years against the Pats. it's a zone that any GREAT qb can find no matter WHAT is on the line. mister elway used to define this in the 2 minute drill (of course, that was only during the 2 minute warning and usually required Denver to be trailing) in the sense that he stepped up, and even if he was only there for 2 mins of that game, he was there. troy aikman and the Boys lost in the NFC finals one year to Steve Young and San Fran in a heartbreaker but damned if Aikman wasn't ALL in that game, after getting hit and/or sacked hard nearly 30 times, with mud and grass hanging from his facemask, keeping hope alive.
peyton manning is a shell of a man. i know he'll go to the hall of fame and i know what he's capable of - he's just gonna have to do a hell of a lot more to prove himself to me and millions of others before he is ever seen as a truly GREAT quarterback.
Posted by: matty mckechnie | February 13, 2007 6:28 PM
Wow. LOVING the debate on this page. You guys bring the fire, and I don't care who is right or wrong, I'm loving the ideas flying around.
I will say this about Peyton Manning: If he's so great (and I think he is pretty unusually great) why does everyone hate him so much?
I think we're watching the best quarterback of all time, and I say that not necessarily because I like the guy, but because when the dust settles he'll have compiled so many numbers, Texas Instruments will need to invent calculators with longer screens. Okay, that was horrible, but the point is, Manning is what most American football playing kids used to want to be, but everyone hates him.
At the very least, its peculiar, and mildly entertaining. Can some Americans provide insights into this phenomenon for me? And it has to go further than commercials, and the Manning face. It just HAS to.
And Bill Simmons is right about the Superbowl MVP-- should have gone to Rexy. As he put it, "who else did more to help the Colts cause than Grossman?"
You guys are awesome.
Posted by: Jon | February 13, 2007 9:00 PM
First off -- props to Jon for name-dropping the Sports Guy. I love me some Bill Simmons....
Second -- Matty is correct that Peyton still has NOT come up big in the Big Game. I give you that much. But in terms of pure QB'ing on any given day, I'm sorry, but Peyton Manning is that guy. He is the definition of being a QB should be: he calls his own plays (NO ONE does that anymore), he is an impressive physical specimen, and generally has a greatest football mind than most of the coaches on current NFL sidelines.
BTW -- the Bears D was NOT tough in that game. The rain was coming down in droves & Peyton called the correct plays to help them win the game: short passes & lots of draws up the middle. Rhodes & Addai ran for over 200 combined yards on SB XLI against a piss-poor Bears D (and yes, I'm a Bears fan).
Peyton did what he needed to do to win the game for his team -- plain & simple.
And WHY WHY WHY am I defending Peyton?!?!? I don't even really like the guy. To answer Jon's question, I think people don't like him because they are intimidated by his talent, they are annoyed with his constant commercial presence, & they are irritated by the fact that a dorky/clumsy-looking white guy is the face of the NFL. And Peyton just isn't as fun as Michael Vick....
Posted by: Adam P. Newton | February 14, 2007 6:50 AM
Mike Vick is an interesting guy. First of all, he's so athletic he has no excuse not to develop an accurate arm. If he practiced he could do anything, in any sport, so basically, he must have zero work ethic.
I picture him spending the off-season lounging casually beside a pool eating fried foods all summer, only he doesn't get a huge gut because he's such a genetic freak. Then after a few months he says, "oh ya, I'm an insanely talented NFL quarterback," and comes back to the Falcons.
Will he ever become what he could be? Is he a case of squandered talent or unrealistic expectations?
I can't tell. But Adam's right, no one is as fun as Mike Vick. Don't drink the bong water Mikey!!
Posted by: Jon Adams | February 15, 2007 10:15 AM
I was thinking about what Dungy might have been meant by saying he did it the Lord's way ...
And then I happened to catch the ending to what could be the most amazing football movie ever made .. more heart wrenching than "Brian's Song", more action than a broken guard's neck in "The Longest Yard", and more believable than Keanu Reeves as a football player (or an actor).
It is called "Facing the Giants". I only saw the last 20 minutes, but as far as I could gather God kicked a field goal to win the game. So maybe Dungy won cause the Lord made Grossman suck so bad (there had to be some spiritual intervention to explain some of those lame duck passes).
Jon, please don't tell my church friends that I didn't really like "Facing the Giants" cause it totally changed their lives.
Posted by: Kaj | February 15, 2007 12:58 PM
first off, KAJ! welcome to the debate. oh my! this sucker is bringing the all stars out of the WOODWORK (and i'm sure bringing Kaj out of several feet of Huntsville area snow) to give their two cents. jon, also - great to see you that you're so self-absorbed, you check your own article on a daily basis for comments (i do this several times a day, who am i kidding?)
well, i've said it before and i'll say it again. Numbers? good. Calling own plays? Also good. Not performing in the big game? Unacceptable. For that reason and that reason only, he will never be the best QB of all time (gimme a BREAK! like that's not embellishment) but he will definitely join the list of great stats QB's who couldn't quite 'step up' under pressure:
Dan Marino
Vinny (toss the ball away) Testaverde
Dave Krieg
Rodney Peete
Doug Flutie
Warren Moon
Posted by: matty mckechnie | February 15, 2007 8:02 PM
WHAT?!?!?
You're a Canadian saying that Flutie couldn't step up in big games? How many Grey Cups did he win when he played in the CFL?
And seriously now.... How can you put Rodney Peete, Dave Kreig, & Vinny T in the same echelon as Marino & Moon?
Here's this -- The Colts have won the Big Game, QB'd by Peyton Manning. We can't deny this, no matter how hard we try. His goofy self lifted the Lombardi Trophy over his head on February 4th. It happened & we must accept it. He was NOT a Trent Dilfer in doing so.
However, Manning has yet to enter into the same echelon as Montana, Brady, Aikman, Bradshaw, et al. This we can say -- he's the best "Stats" QB in NFL History, but he is NOT the best "Big Game" QB.
And it leaves us with this question -- which kind of QB is the best in the long run?
Posted by: Adam P. Newton | February 16, 2007 12:11 PM
KAJ!! First off all, I wish we watched the Super Bowl together. Imagine the amount of sarcastic, line-pushing, downright mean things we would have said about Rex Grossman. It would have been a) awesome and b) likely the last time we ever hung out because your wife would kill me. Perhaps Grossman could repent and then God will purge him of these football demons and drive them into the body of Joe Namath, who would then become an unstoppable, sideline reporter kissing machine.
So God kicks a field goal eh? Was it kind of like that Budweiser superbowl commercial that had Jay-Z playing Don Shula in some sort of virtual football game? Shula kicks a field goal and one of Jay-Z's concubines blows it wide left-- I'm not sure what significance the commercial had, but we do know one thing-- Jay-Z is cool. I gotta see this Facing the Giants.
Matty, great list. I would have bet $1000, 50-1 that I would never have heard Rodney Peete's name again. And I would have lost big money.
And as for checking the comments, I couldn't turn away from all this banter. It's a sports man's dream to have all these opinions flying around. Oh and also, I love myself and yada yada yada.
Posted by: Jon | February 16, 2007 1:55 PM
well, well! This is REALLY heating up.
First off - KAJ! Why do you live so far away from the Summit people you influence so greatly and then disappear into the wilds of the GHA (Greater Huntsville Area)...and how can I ever possibly be as cool as you?
You are big money in my books.
Second - JON ADAMS! You BC miscreant. I miss you like cooked food and debating sports with you is something that fires my idling engine like nitrous.
Third - ADAM! I like where our relationship is headed.
Fourth (and most relevant)...it's like this. I had a long talk with my colleague Jeff last night about Manning. Jeff is 37 and one of the most knowledgeable NFL persons I have ever come across. The jist of what he said boiled down to 'the all-time great QB's (Montana, Elway, Brister, Starr) have an integrity and a character that cannot be denied - it pours out of them as they play. It also cannot be nailed down to stats. They know when to hold back and they know when to push hard. Any idiot can hand off in the rain all day and throw 2-3 yard passes to win a game.'
Adam, youre right. Manning DID QB the colts to victory in the big game. However, it didn't need to be Manning in there - with over 200 yards rushing, what QB COULDN'T get a victory out of that? that's two trips JUST with your ground game from one end zone to the other.
The sad truth is, in our fast-paced computer age, our culture is results-oriented. Good performance = good numbers. Calling your own plays is one thing but if the Bears had followed the example of last year's Pittsburgh team (and basically blitzed like hell), they could have easily shut Manning down. Within a hugely blitzing D, as proven with Pittsburgh, Manning is easily contained - he's basically a corpse. But if you read some of the interviews from linebackers who blitzed Montana, the respect that any defender had for that guy was glowing.
The reason why Manning is where he is now IS because stats go the distance with the new age of fanship.
Posted by: matty mckechnie | February 16, 2007 6:18 PM
ok, first of all ... to answer two questions at once: the question of my not living near the likes of jon may be answered by jon's thoughts on us teaming up to become a cross-the-line-sarcastic-machine ... great time for us and yet in a few years we end up all alone, bitter and eating out of a can hunched over the sink.
As far as the greatest quaterbacks of all time are concerned ... I don't mean to continue to muddy the waters of this discussion with my limited NFL knowledge but if we are talking big game moves Manning can't hold a candle to Gus ... I realize he was a kicker and not a quarterback, but the California Atoms were going nowhere until this mule came in to save the game! Now he did have that whole drunken acceptance of an award so maybe that moves him more into the Namath realm. Just a thought. I think I may have just used up all my football movie material so until we switch topics to another sport (would Dominique have posterized even more people with Flubber?) I will leave the real discussion up to you guys. peace and love from cold and snowy Huntsville
Posted by: Kaj | February 19, 2007 8:34 AM