By Matt Pelc
Bah, football season is over.
It just seems like yesterday we put a countdown clock on the site to commemorate the upcoming football season. I remember it being around 45 days or so when we first put it up, making football season seem so far away. The season now seems like a blur and was gone in what seemed like a second.
Seriously why can’t the basketball season go by that fast?
Now here we are on the eve of the last football game of the year, the Super Bowl (please don’t sue me for promoting your game by using the correct name of your game, money hungry NFL).
I have to say that I am looking forward to this Super Bowl and hoping for a good game, despite what I think will probably happen. But we will get to predictions in a little while.
This was the matchup I was hoping for prior to the postseason, the Indianapolis Colts against the New Orleans Saints. They were the best teams of their conference all season long, were both undefeated through three quarters of the season and were the most entertaining teams in the league this year.
On a personal note, I have no one that I am rooting for, which means I have no one I am rooting against.
Avid readers of JLABANNERS.com know that I have a problem. I am a “playa hata.” I find myself, when not having a rooting interest in a game, usually picking against the media darling team or the over-hyped athlete on a particular team.
But in this Super Bowl matchup, I have no hating.
I know, I am shocked too.
I should hate Peyton Manning for all his commercials, all of his man love and everything else, but I have actually been a fan of his since his Tennessee days. The Saints were a good story and I remember the draft of 2001 standing in the produce prep room of a now defunct Farmer Jack Supermarket listening to the NFL draft on the radio pleading with my Lions to draft a plucky quarterback from Purdue, Drew Brees.
Then they drafted Jeff Backus.
And the rest, they say, is history.
So for the first time in I don’t know how many Super Bowls, I will not be rooting against a particular team and will just be hoping for a great game as I will be happy for either team coming out as champions on Sunday night.
SUPER BOWL XLIV
NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (15-3)
VS.
INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (16-2)(-5)
SUN LIFE STADIUM, MIAMI, FLORIDA 6:25 p.m.
So while I am hoping for a good game, I am not expecting one.
I was totally not impressed with the Saints effort in the NFC championship game. If the Vikings could have held onto one of their billion fumbles or the Anointed One did not once again fold under pressure (yes I know he has a lot of lovers out there as I found out on Facebook during the game. I will acknowledge he was once a clutch quarterback, but the Anointed One has not won a big game in over a decade. It’s over babe, time to FINALLY AND FOREVER hang up the cleats).
New Orleans could catch a break if Dwight Freeney can not go. The Colts defense is already pretty banged up with Bob Sanders among several key defensive starters out of action for the season. If Freeney can not go, that means Indy’s top two defenders are out, making it easier for Brees and the offense to move the ball.
Still though, I think the Saints will move the ball with or without Freeney, but will their defense be able to stop Manning and the Colts?
The Saints had the 25th ranked defense in the regular season and did do a decent job on Arizona in the divisional round, holding Kurt Warner in his final NFL game to just 14 points, but they did not play very well against Minnesota in my opinion.
Sure you see the five turnovers Minnesota had in the game, but much of those were just dropping the ball. Not strips, just drops. And if they thought the Vikings offense was tough, they did move the ball very well despite losing, the Colts are even better.
The other factor may be the weather, which may include rain and temperatures in the low 60’s at game time. I may give an advantage to one team over the other if only one team was a domed team, but both play in domes, granted Indy’s retracts, so no one has a real advantage.
Although keep in mind when the Colts won their last Super Bowl in February 2007, there was plenty of rain in a game also held in Miami.
So where does that leave us?
While I tip my hat to the Saints for an awesome season (and leaving the Lions as the only NFC team to never go to a Super Bowl (barf)), I think the depth and experience of the Colts leads them to a victory and a (sadly) fairly easy win in Super Bowl 44.
COLTS 34, SAINTS 19
Posted 9:30 a.m.
