TWO WEEKS AND SEVEN POINTS?
This is the part of the NFL season that most fans hate.
After a Sunday of triumphant victories and one tense finish, we've got 12 days until kickoff of Super Bowl XLI in Miami.
Start the hype machine, cue the instrumental music and play the grainy video of Pop Warner games past.
We're going to read, watch and listen to the fact that Peyton Manning has finally won the big game and to countless comparisons of the 2006-07 Bears and the 1985 team that shuffled into NFL lore.
Did you also know that Lovie and Dungy are best of buds?
And did you know that this will be the first time in the history of the NFL that an African-American coach will win?
(As a side note, hopefully this game inspires University presidents, chancellors, and regents around the country to diversify the ranks of Division One head coaches.)
By the time kickoff finally comes around at 1 p.m. Hawaii time on February 4, no story line will be unheard, read or watched.
The Bears beat the Saints down and no amount of Reggie Bush finger wagging was going to keep the Monsters of the Midway and their disruptive, destructive defense out of the big game.
Sexy Rexy did not have a big game but it is starting to look like it doesn't matter what the unpredictable gunslinger brings to the corral on game day.
His defense and talented receiving corps have made up for those segments of the game where he loses touch with the plan and starts hurling passes toward anything in a like-colored jersey.
Peyton and the Colts beat Brady and Belichik to get to the big game and did it by pulling off the greatest comeback in championship game history.
I watched the game with a Pats fan who down the stretch got up and walked out of his apartment twice. As things started to unravel for the Pats, he began to compulsively clean his apartment, picking up dishes and scrubbing frying pans.
Thankfully he ditched alcohol for ice water after Reche Caldwell got hit in the crotch with a Brady pass in the end zone.
IF YOU HAD TO PICK TODAY....
Who would you take with the Colts installed as touchdown favorites?
Bears?
Colts?
Peyton?
Rex?!
The Islander Girl sent me a text at work yesterday asking me whether the Bears or Colts would win.
She told all her co-workers the Bears are going to win and I may just bet accordingly.
But really, who the heck knows at this point?
There is way too much time to talk yourself into taking either team. all betting trends go out the window in the big game.
Historically, if you took the favorite and the over since 1962, you'd be in the black, barely.
Here's a look at who covered what in the Super Bowl since 1967.