Of all the Dolphins on that miraculous, wonderful, godly, never-never-never-ever duplicated perfect season (which, I remind you, was TWO GAMES SHORTER than the current season), just one pathetic worthless obnoxious loudmouth feels the need to keep harping on it year after year. That says a lot right there. Also, pretty much all the wailing and moaning in the media came from ESPN (and well as all the flogging over the issue in the past). What really drove the pointlessness of it all home was, as I’ve mentioned before, the absolute dead silence about the merits of 18-1 vs. 17-0 (if something like this happened in college football, the raging debate would have set some computer rooms on fire). It’s become plainly obvious that perfection in the regular season is not that important, a point made pretty often in this league. Hey, how 'bout them 13-3 Chiefs? There’s plenty of support for this position. Go on, ask around.
The Superbowl, more than any other championship game/series in existence (with the possible exception of the NBA finals), is where feel-good stories go to die. The Bengals are one creampuff interception from pulling off a miracle and crushing the myth of Joe Montana forever, and the stupid moron defender drops it the rich get richer. Same thing happens to the Cardinals, who, in typical Cardinals fashion, find a way to come up juuuuuust short in their once-in-a-lifetime chance, and the Steelers become the NFL’s Yankees. Seahawks? Same deal, and let’s add naked corruption. (Note to Airman Doors: I’m not a fan of any team, all right, I don’t want this happening to anybody.) Vikings’ fourth time? Bills’? Sorry, can’t mess with the status quo. New Orleans is still dealing with a horrific disaster (and the scandalously incompetent response from FEMA) and has overcome a history of failure and embarrassment to finally reach the big dance. All signs say they’re hosed.
And in all honestly, it’s hard to like the Saints’ chances since their entire gameplan seems to be “kill the quarterback”. Everyone tries to kill the quarterback in this league. Especially if he’s a gamebreaker and has a proven track record of success. This isn’t a strategy, this is Underpants Gnomes wishful thinking.
The Colts invited to the Pro Bowl reportedly apparently will be playing in that game. Be interesting to see how this affects the game that matters. My guess that it’ll make a little impact, but not enough to actually swing the game (see point #2).
I haven’t seen much evidence of the big hype buildup that usually precedes this game. Could this be a consequence of teams being from relatively middling cities? I know how the NBA guys hit the roof whenever small-market teams make the Finals (which brings up the issue of why the hell even have small-market teams in the first place, but never mind).
That’s all. Carry on. Regular season don’t matter.
On point 4, are you serious? What the fuck? They’re willing to play their players in a meaningless game a week before the superbowl, but they can’t play their fucking players in real games weeks before the important ones?
What I heard is that the Colts players will be at the Pro Bowl, but will not play. The only thing I could find in writing quickly was this, a preview report on the game that says seven players from each Super Bowl team will be missing the Pro Bowl.
My apologies. I was confused by your reference to the year the team appeared, which is different than the year that the season in which they made the Super Bowl generally occurred.
It looks like Dwight Freeney tore a tendon in his leg, so he’s (very) questionable for Sunday. Even if he can go, how effective can he be? I’m going to go out on a limb and say the answer is “not at all”.
The Saints’ chances just got immeasurably better. And that puts a big smile on my face.
I’m counting this as a win for me. Line is 4.5, late money still coming in on the Saints (though not an avalanche). My favorite bet is the Saints money line; was +190 yesterday, now down to +179 on pinnacle. The Colts will probably win, but these teams were a lot closer than people seem to realize (or remember) over the course of the season, and to a large extent I think people are overreacting to the Championship round, which, while definitely suggestive of Indy’s superiority, was just one week.
The game is almost here. My Saints, whom I have loved and followed for 40 years, are actually in the Super Bowl. Winning would be almost unimaginably awesome…
I was thinking that resting the starters already worked for the Colts. Quitting allowed the Jets into the playoffs, and it was the Jets who took out the Chargers so Indy didn’t have to. Remember that the Chargers have really had the Colts number, beating them in the playoffs every year since the Colts won the Superbowl. Okay, “every” is coming on a little strong for a two year span, but c’mon, the Chargers knocked Indy out of the playoffs two years in a row. They’ve got their number.
So the Colts let the Jets take care of San Diego, and what is left for the Colts to do? Take out two offensively-challenged wildcard teams. So yeah, I have to grudgingly give the “lay down like a bunch of pussies” strategy an A+ this year.
Good thing, I will stay 43 for one hour more…
Actually, I based the time on the ticker from NFL.com, but it could also be that the mistake comes from having no daylight savings time in Arizona.
