Not So Super

I don;t exactly why I couldn;t get into the Super Bowl last night, I can think of many reasons that may have caused it but I can;t pinpoint just one. There's the obvious letdown involved with the Patriots being so close, but not adding to their dynasty. But it was more than that, I think deep down I knew that the Bears didn;t stand a chance. And when you start with a premise where you more or less know the outcome, a sloppy game that delivers the expected result really isn;t going to excite. Basically everything after the initial kick-off return seemed to be part of a slow steady unexciting win for The Colts. So my recap of the game, awesome opening kick-off return, a sloppy but intriguing first half, a haltime show I really enjoyed and then a boring dreadful second half where the Bears seemed overmatched on every level.

Of course no recap of a Super Bowl would be complete without a review of all the extras that now are as much a part of the spectacle as the game itself. I've always been a mild Prince fan, and he seems closer to being at the top of his game than Paul McCartney or The Rolling Stones were at their halftime show. Aside from U2 at SB XXXVI, Prince gave the best halftime show in recent memory. I'd have enjoyed a medley of his own hits instead of a medley of other peoples hits in the middle, but aside from that he gave a really strong performance, which is even more impressive given the weather and possible threat of Prince being fried with his electric guitar. Unfortunately the commercials didn;t live up to their normal standards. There were a couple highlights, most notably K-Fed showing he had a sense of humor by making fun of himself, this is the most likable that Kevin has ever been. Not only were the ads that they showed not funny, there were no new ads in the established series of ads, such as the office full of monkeys or my personal favorite, the Geico.com cavemen ads. So aside from Prince this was the most disappointing Super Bowl in my memory.

The most disappointing factor of the night for me was The Colts winning. It's certainly not because of Tony Dungy, a total class act who deserves any good fortune that comes his way. I't's not because of Peyton Manning either, while I'm not his biggest fan, he does seem like a nice guy and his commercials (unlike most of those aired last night) consistently make me laugh. I think the real reason that I don;t like the Colts is that douchebag Bill Polian. Polian consistently whines about officials and acts like a jerk behind the scenes during Colts games, but most importantly, I hate the way he put this Colts team together. They're built completely around their offense with defense as an afterthought. Their offensive line is full of high-priced talent most of whom were drafted high, their two wideouts were first rounders and are both among the top paid WRs in football, Dallas Clark was drafted in the first round despite the fact that their offense was already very strong and their defense was very weak, and almost every year they let their best defensive players walk (Mike Peterson, Gary Brackett, David Thornton just to name a few.) It vexes me, it vexes me very greatly, I'm quite vexed right now. The good news is that hopefully in the copycat NFL lots of teams will waste all their salary cap space on offensive stars and the Pats will wisely spend on defense and have 53 good players as opposed to a top heavy roster with glamourous stars, and the Pats will take their rightful place atoop the NFL once again.

One last point before I give up talking about the Super Bowl...Rex Grossman sucks, thats all I have to say about that. Actually not really, I'm going to expound on that. I heard a few analysts try to say that Grossman was not the reason the Bears lost this game, but in reality, if the Bears had a top 15 quarterback they could've very easily won this game. Grossman was a lot worse than his stats may indicate. when you take into account how well all the other surrounding parts were on this Bears team, a mediocre QB could've made this a competetive game. Their running game was strong, the receivers were able to get open, but Grossman threw two awful balls that were intercepted, and two others that should've been easy INTs. But the poor passes weren;t as bad as his ridiculous inability to handle the snap form center. Fumbling once due to the sloppy conditions may have been excusable, but not twice. Chicago is in a very tough spot, they have a very young QB who still someday could become good, but the rest of the team is ready now. If were in charge there I would trade for Matt Schaub and take my chances because they're drafting too low to get a star QB, and aside from Brady Quinn or Jamarcus Russell, no other rookie would stand a chance of leading a top level team. Furthermore Jeff Garcia, the best free agent QB, isn't quite good enough to lead a team to the Super Bowl either. I don;t know what it would take to get Schaub, but it might be worth it for the Bears to ante up so they could have a shot at the big pot come the end of the season.

All Right, the Super Bowl has drained me, until next time

-Bender Out