The game may have set a record for clichés available to sportswriters: two heavyweights; got up off the canvas; monkey off the back; a defense that bends and, in this case, finally broke. But none do justice to the magnitude and the brilliance of the Colts’ victory. Indy came back from 18 points down and years of heartbreak to score the winning touchdown with just a minute left in the game. It came on a masterstroke of deception. With a third-and-two at the Patriots’ three-yard line, the NFL’s premiere passer, Peyton Manning, eschewed the air and, instead, handed the ball off to rookie Joseph Addai, who scooted into the end zone.
Then Manning retired to the bench, barely able to watch as his great rival, Tom Brady, the NFL’s modern master of last-minute heroics, drove the Patriots down the field one last time. On too many occasions in the past it was Manning’s last gasp that had come up short against the three-time Super Bowl champions. But this time it was Indy’s much-criticized defense that made the crucial stop, intercepting Brady on the Colts’ 35-yard line to secure the victory.
As a Bostonian, I’ve been privileged in recent years to watch a truly great professional team. The Patriots never disappointed, and they didn’t this time, either. It’s just that this time the Colts were the better team. I wouldn’t have been the least surprised at game’s end to see Manning and his coach, Tony Dungy, both having been judged harshly for past failures to win the big game, float like helium balloons up to the RCA Dome roof as the weight of their collective disappointments lifted from their shoulders.
Having acknowledged my privilege as a fan, I still know a little something, as does every Bostonian of a certain vintage, about snake-bit teams. And in 2004, the Boston Red Sox victory was even more special because of the historic comeback that came at the expense of their archrival New York Yankees. The Colts couldn’t have scripted any better story for themselves and their fans. That Indy could muster an AFC Championship-record comeback against their great nemesis makes the Colts’ first title in 36 years—its first since it left Baltimore more than 20 years ago—that much sweeter.
So dynasty is gone from Super Bowl XLI. And so is destiny, or at least that karmic variety in which the NFL’s perennial bottom-dwelling New Orleans Saints became a symbol of hope for a ravaged city. In a sloppy game on an even sloppier Soldier Field in Chicago, the Chicago Bears ended this season’s impossible dream by a 39-14 score. The NFC Championship was good for at least one classic cliché as well: it was a lot closer than the score indicated. The Saints, trailing 16-0 early, mustered a comeback of their own to pull within two points. But then a couple of bad decisions—a long field-goal try on a treacherous field that gave the Bears field position, and a desperation pass out of the end zone that gave them a safety—gave the momentum back. In the end, Chicago won its first championship in 21 years the same way it has been winning all season—with relentless defense that forced four turnovers.
If Super Bowl XLI now lacks dynasty and destiny, it doesn’t lack for history. Chicago’s Lovie Smith became the first African-American coach to lead his team to a Super Bowl and, four hours later, Dungy joined him as the second. The NFL, with its mandate to team owners to boost the number of black head coaches, may have the best of intentions, but has only been moderately successful. Nothing in the NFL, however, commands as much attention and respect as victory.
Super Bowl XLI will provide a decided contrast, a matchup of the latest incarnation of “the greatest show on turf” vs. another of those Monster-of-the-Midway defensive powers. The Colts, just as the Patriots, Chargers or any AFC champion would have been, are a solid favorite in Miami, with the betting line opening at a touchdown. The AFC has won five of the last six Super Bowls and dominated the 2006 season against the NFC. Of course, it is worth noting that the recent Patriots dynasty began with a Super Bowl victory over another offensive juggernaut in what, at the time, was regarded as far more of a mismatch.
The reigning cliché, the one that worked for the Patriots against the St. Louis Rams back in Super Bowl XXXVI, is that defense wins Super Bowls. But the Bears defense is not remotely in the league of that legendary Bears team that shuffled off with the team’s last championship in Super Bowl XX. And it will have to be at least that good because no Super Bowl has ever witnessed such a mismatch at the quarterback position. Rex Grossman has been a question mark at the helm all season. And now that he has provided a clear answer, nobody in Chicago can be happy about it.
Chicagoans are savvy football fans, and even Sunday’s championship rout can’t mask Grossman’s miserably shaky, not-ready-for-primetime performance. Lovie Smith has stood by Grossman all season and is unlikely, at this juncture, to turn to veteran backup Brian Griese, as many fans have been pleading in recent weeks. Instead, he could opt to go the Trent Dilfer route—an ultra-conservative, low-risk offensive game plan—that worked for Baltimore in its championship run six years ago. But that strategy can only succeed in harness with a shutdown defense. After surrendering 354 passing yards to Saints quarterback Drew Brees, the Bears defense doesn’t appear up to that task with Manning.
Inevitably, with two weeks of TV and newspapers and Internet to fill before Super Sunday, we will begin to hear the suggestion that the only one who can shut down Manning is Manning himself. There will be a reflexive chorus that reaching the Super Bowl is not enough, that Manning will never be validated until he wins on football’s biggest stage. To my mind, Manning has more than proved his mettle already. Still, I have no doubt he will render all remaining questions moot in Miami. In fact, that’s my Super Bowl prediction, an anthem for the new champs: Moot Over Miami.
