Superbowl matchup

[snooch]

It's going to be the Indianapolis Colts versus the Chicago Bears. It's also the first time any African American head coach has made an appearance there. Both teams have black coaches. Tony Dungy (Indy) is an NFL icon and has been around for a while now. Great coach and good man too. Lovie Smith from Chicago is a relative noob head coach, but that doesn't make him any less dangerous. He took a crap team and now they're in the Superbowl.

Tonight, the Colts beat their arch rivals, the New England Patriots for their berth. Payton Manning(the colts quarterback and hall of fame shoe-in) is making his first superbowl appearance after having been prevented 3 times in the last five years by Tom Brady and the Patriots. The Colts never had the lead the whole game until the last minute. They tied it a few times and then fell back. In the first half, they were down 21-6 and rallied to come back at the end. Manning finally has the no superbowl monkey off his back.

The Bears beat the New Orleans Saints earlier today in a bit of a blowout. 39-14 The Saints were neck and neck until about halfway through the third quarter when Drew Brees(Saints qb) got an intentional grounding (when the quarterback throws a ball to nobody when in between the hashmarks middle of the field) penalty when he was in the endzone. This results in a safety (2 points) and the offending team kicks it away to the other team. After that, the momentum went to the Bears. They tightened up their defence and went on a scoring run. It was almost embarassing at the end.

I'll post more stuff as the Superbowl gets closer. It's on Feb. 2, 2007.

[SlavikSvensk]

peyton is bull****. now his fat head will grow so big it will explode and destroy indiana. the colts could barely beat us and we were a sorry shade of our super bowl glory years. 3rd string safeties, WRs who were cut by other teams and wouldn't start on any other team with a winning record, and linebackers averaging 30+ years old...and the colts barely beat us!

i hope the bears eat them alive.

(can you tell i'm a tad bit biased?)

[snooch]

I'm a Bears fan since I used to live there for 9 years, but I wouldn't mind seeing Manning win a Superbowl. Fathead or not, he is one of the best of all time. Stats speak for themselves. I don't want him to pull a Marino and retire without title. Plus I have to applaud a quarterback of his caliber who doesn't skip around the league for the highest paycheck.

[SlavikSvensk]

he's a numbers quarterback. he puts up his nice stats and throws the ball well, but he's just not all that impressive. how would he do WITHOUT the best WR tandem in the league?

[snooch]

he's a numbers quarterback. he puts up his nice stats and throws the ball well, but he's just not all that impressive. how would he do WITHOUT the best WR tandem in the league?

Hmmm it seems that most of the top QBs out there had a receiver or two that they favored. Montana-Rice, Aikman-Irvin, Favre- Freeman and Keith Jackson, Staubach-Pearson, Young-Rice, Brady- Brown, Bradshaw - Swann. I could go on. I don't really know of any great quarterback out there that didn't have a go-to receiver.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not some huge Peyton Manning fan who will defend him no matter how much he f*cks up, but I have no clue where you get the idea that Manning isn't impressive. The Manning-Harrison combo is the highest scoring combo OF ALL TIME. No scrub quarterback can do that. Yeah, Harrison is great, but to make the statement that Manning isn't impressive is wrong IMO. Like him or not, he's the one in the superbowl this year.

[SlavikSvensk]

troy brown has never been as good as either marvin harrison or reggie wayne. and the past 3 years he's been a #3 receiver. and deion branch wasn't THAT good either. marvin harrison may be the best receiver since jerry rice. reggie wayne would be a #1 on more than half the teams in the league. he BURNS corners, has great hands and runs routes perfectly.

i mean, manning is def a great qb, and will likely break all of dan marino's records, but i still think he's had a relatively easy ride to where he is. the key will be...can he stay good when harrison and wayne are gone? dan marino did. maybe peyton can too. we'll see.

i'm more a brady/mcnair type guy. i like gritty dudes who win in the clutch when they have no business competing. two of the patriots superbowls were like that. the first against the rams, and then the one agains the panthers...i mean, how many teams win the SB with zero running game and no elite receivers?

[snooch]

I agree on the gritty quarterback thing. Totally. I just think that Manning deserves his dues. That having been said, I'll take a less talented quarterback like McNair or Jim Kelley any day. I think the 2000 Superbowl between the Titans and the Rams was one of the best games I have ever seen due to key players like McNair. Like it or not, this past weeks game was a great one too.

Reggie Wayne is a truly awesome receiver with a great future ahead of him. You can tell that Harrison has been coaching him on the finer points of the game.

[SlavikSvensk]

i wonder about jim kelley, though. if he hadn't played his 20s in the USFL we might be talking about him as one of the top 5 ever. i mean, by the time he got to buffalo he was already a veteran.

[snooch]

Bingo. I have seen him horrendously screw up though. He had a penchant for fumbling.

This is the same syndrome as Jeff Garcia. Hall of Famer for the CFL comes to SF as QB, 3 time Pro-Bowler, one of the only three quarterbacks to ever score 30 touchdowns 2 seasons in a row with loads of playoff experience. Known to have a weak arm and as a closet homosexual. "If it looks like a rat, it smells like a rat, it's a rat." -Terrel Owens in an interview with Playboy magazine about his public shit-talking of Jeff Garcia and whether he is gay or not. I don't care about the gay thing in the least, but his arm strength is an issue as is his accuracy. His drive and motivation is enough to make up for that though. Look what he just did for a floundering Philly team.

[SlavikSvensk]

i've always felt the accusation that garcia is gay is kind of unfounded. i mean, you never know what goes on in a lockerroom, but the only "evidence" i've ever heard was TO mouthing off, and he's just not credible. TO was upset at garcia because he felt garcia wasn't throwing him the ball enough.

[herman]

TO was upset at garcia because he felt garcia wasn't throwing him the ball enough.

Now there's a shocker :)


On the Peyton Manning issue there's no disputing his regular season numbers but in the playoff's he flat out sucks especially against a shifting secondary (was shocked Belichick didn't use more of that) If Mike Brown was fit I would have no hesitation in picking Chicago for this one but without him there secondary doesn't look nearly as potent plus Im not sure if Tank Johnson is allowed to travel to Miami which would lessen the pass rush a lot and as Chicago use a 4-3 thats a worry, hmmm started this as an anti Manning rant and have ended up convincing myself Chicago might blow it hahah

For the record im a Steelers fan no bandwagon jumper either have been for 24 (ish) years I even suffered through the Neil O'Donnel years god dammit :)

[snooch]

There are a lot of ifs in this one. The Bears could win IF Grossman doesn't have one of his 0 qb rating days. The Colts could win IF they control the clock and stay with a balanced attack instead of relying solely on Mannings' arm. The Bears can win IF they can control Peyton passing over their linebackers and under their DBs and safeties. The Colts can win if Adai rushes well and makes the playaction effective. The Bears could win if their secondary can take away the big play factor of the Colts passing game. Either team could win if they control turnovers which they both have recent issues with. Both teams could win if their Jones for Chicago stays consistent and Adai does the same. The Chicago defense gets a boost today because a Chicago area judge has released the massive defensive lineman Tank Jones to travel to Florida for the superbowl.

Verdict? I have no clue.

[SlavikSvensk]

Now there's a shocker :)


On the Peyton Manning issue there's no disputing his regular season numbers but in the playoff's he flat out sucks especially against a shifting secondary (was shocked Belichick didn't use more of that) If Mike Brown was fit I would have no hesitation in picking Chicago for this one but without him there secondary doesn't look nearly as potent plus Im not sure if Tank Johnson is allowed to travel to Miami which would lessen the pass rush a lot and as Chicago use a 4-3 thats a worry, hmmm started this as an anti Manning rant and have ended up convincing myself Chicago might blow it hahah

For the record im a Steelers fan no bandwagon jumper either have been for 24 (ish) years I even suffered through the Neil O'Donnel years god dammit :)

damn dude...it's not every day i see that kind of detailed knowledge of football coming from the UK haha.

anyways i totally agree that chicago is worse off because of the absence of mike brown, but they've done well the last two weeks and i think new orleans was a good primer for indy. i mean, indy is better than NO and chicago was home last week but they should be able to stuff the colts' run attack in a way the patriots, bless 'em, couldn't. if they can get indy to abandon the run, they can play in nickel packages and sit the extra db as a robber. peyton's thrown 6 interceptions so far in the playoffs, so there will likely be some opportunities to get the ball from him.

oddly, i'm more worried (for the bears sake) about how they'll deal with indy's suddenly good defense. i keep waiting for grossman to have one of those terrible games he's known for...

[snooch]

if they can get indy to abandon the run, they can play in nickel packages and sit the extra db as a robber. peyton's thrown 6 interceptions so far in the playoffs, so there will likely be some opportunities to get the ball from him.

oddly, i'm more worried (for the bears sake) about how they'll deal with indy's suddenly good defense. i keep waiting for grossman to have one of those terrible games he's known for...

I think these two points will be key as will consistent play from both running backs. I don't think the factor of Indy's defence showing up or not will be debatable. Indy is a team of hungry guys who have been to the playoffs before and know that the playoffs are like a new season. They will step up. They've got too much of a monkey on their back not to.

For Chicago, Grossman is the big what if factor. He can't even have a bad quarter with Indy's potential for putting up huge numbers very quickly. Their defence isn't an issue, they will do their job and their special teams is clearly superior, but will Grossman not try to win the game and make stupid decisions like he did for the last third of the season? Who knows...

[SlavikSvensk]

not necessarily true. the bills were the hungry, awesome offensive and speedy defensive team in 1991 and they lost to a boring, run-and-get-turnovers defensive team in the new york giants. the broncos were favored against the giants and redskins back in the late 80s for the same reasons.

plus almost everyone on the colts was on last year's team as well, so they all have playoff experience. more than the bears do.

as for monkeys on backs, the eagles had the whole nfc championship wall thing on their back, got to the sb 2 years ago and promptly lost

[DJsmallpaul]

When does this happen ?

[SlavikSvensk]

a week from sunday! super bowls are either incredible games or incredibly one-sided. hard to tell ahead of time