My Super Bowl Thoughts

I'm disappointed in the Colts and their performance in the Super Bowl last night. I can think of a lot worse fates than the New Orleans Saints being NFL Champions, though. In fact, aside from the fact that the Colts were their vanquished opponent, I'm happy for the Saints.

I didn't watch any of the pre-game hype of the Super Bowl, nor did I watch any of the media coverage after it. I hear from a number of people that the media over-Katrina'd everything, as I fully expected that they would. I imagine the Haiti earthquake was close behind Hurricane Katrina in the ad nauseam attempts to pull at heart-strings, given the ties to Haiti by the Colts' Pierre Garçon and the Saints' Jonathan Vilma.

Those disasters were absolutely awful. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to diminish either event at all.

What I didn't want to endure, though, is hours upon hours upon hours of the media and the NFL using Katrina and Haiti to hype a football game, especially one in which they prosper financially in a huge way. I fully understand the rising-up-from-disaster storyline. I get it. I don't need to be repeatedly bashed over the head with it.

I'm happy for the Saints in part because the people of New Orleans have something to feel great about. The fact that they have worked so hard to recover from Katrina's devastation and have had this great football season to distract and entertain them likely makes this celebration even sweeter for them. I'm happy for them because this is the first Super Bowl appearance and victory for the Saints in their 43-year existence. I remember decade after decade of the Saints being the laughingstock of the NFL. Good for them for getting their day in the sun. And I'm happy for Drew Brees. He played college football at Purdue, here in Indiana, and he seems like a genuinely good guy. I enjoyed watching him share the moment on the field with his infant son, too.

The talking heads of the sports media will debate in minute detail what went wrong for the Colts, but I have a few thoughts before I glance at an article or two on-line and then move on with my life. In no particular order:

The Colts won the first quarter, 10-0. After that, the Saints handed them their asses, 31-7. The 31-17 final score was deceptively close. The Saints dominated from the second quarter on.

The Colts appeared arrogant. The Saints appeared passionate. It seemed to me that the Colts expected to win handily and didn't anticipate much of a challenge from the Saints. After the first quarter, it seemed headed in that direction. But when the Saints regrouped and came back to punch the Colts in the mouth, the Colts had no response. It's almost as if they were astonished that the peion Saints had the audacity to challenge them, much like a school bully reacts when one of his intended victims fights back. The cold, heartless automatons in blue and white had no ability to muster up any passion or fight. Even after the game, they just calmly walked off the field. No heart. No passion. No fire. Not that I expected to see Peyton Manning curled up in the fetal position at midfield, sucking his thumb and soaking in a pool of his own tears, but SOME sort of emotion would have been encouraging to see...from ANYONE on the Colts sideline. By contrast, the Saints' sideline, even when they were down early, was fired up.

The Colts ran six plays in the second quarter. Six. That's terrible.

It was nice to see some semblance of a running game from the Colts. For awhile, anyway, until the Saints compensated and shut it down.

I think that a huge turning point in the game was the Saints' ability to prevent Peyton Manning from scoring one of his patented right-before-halftime touchdowns. Then they followed it up with the on-side kick after halftime, keeping the ball away from the Colts again. Those two events were potentially a 14-point turnaround for the Saints.

I like Saints coach Sean Payton a lot. That guy has big brass ones. I LOVED the on-side kick to start the second half. I also loved that he went for it on 4th and goal in the first half, even though it didn't work. Coach Payton pulled out all the stops, and I thought it was great.

The irony that Tracy Porter--the Saint who intercepted Manning and ran it back for the game-sealing touchdown--played his college football at Indiana University is delicious. The kill-shot applied to the Colts by a Hoosier.

The Saints had to beat the #4-seed Arizona Cardinals and the #2-seed Minnesota Vikings to advance to the Super Bowl. The Colts only had to beat the #5-seed Baltimore Ravens and #6-seed New York Jets to advance. I wonder if the Colts would have been better prepared for the Saints if they had had to beat San Diego and/or New England along the way. Then the Saints beat the AFC's #1-seed in the Super Bowl. So New Orleans beat Kurt Warner, Brett Favre, and Peyton Manning in the postseason. Indianapolis beat Joe Flacco and Mark Sanchez. There's really no question in my mind as to who the better--and more deserving--team is.

Janet Jackson has ruined the Super Bowl halftime show for everyone. In the NFL's efforts to prevent another "wardrobe malfunction," they have subjected us to a slew of way-beyond-their prime bands, none of whom are younger than about 50, culminating in last night's performance by The Who. I think The Who was pretty popular about 30 years ago. Maybe 40 years ago. They sounded horrible, especially in the beginning, too. (To their credit, they certainly can't be accused of lip-synching.) Is there no relatively modern band that the NFL can trust not to flop a boob out on live TV? I wonder if The Who guitarist's 60-year-old beer gut falling out of his too-short button-up shirt while he windmilled his guitar will be considered a "wardrobe malfunction."

I don't want to beat the dead horse of the Colts quitting on the perfect regular season, but without a Super Bowl ring--the goal that Bill Polian and Jim Caldwell claimed was their only goal, not a perfect season--this goes down as just another forgettable season. They could have had something special, had they not quit. I have to wonder, too, how throwing in the towel on the final two games of the season affected the team's chemistry. Had they played the regular season all the way through, would they have been more polished and refined by Super Bowl time? We'll never know.

I realized as I watched the Colts implode last night that it wasn't bothering me much. Maybe it was because I kind of like the Saints and Drew Brees, too. Maybe it was because the Colts didn't really seem very upset about how things were going, so why should I get overly upset? My family and friends can cite several instances in which I have come absolutely positively unglued about games lost by teams I'm passionate about. But this one didn't really bother me much. On the other hand, I'm still pissed about the Super Bowl four years ago that was handed to the Steelers by the referees at the expense of my Seattle Seahawks. So last night just reaffirmed that I'm a Seahawks fan first. The Colts are a distant second.

And now I'm ready for baseball season. Go A's!