Well, well, the last game of the season is finally upon us. The big Midwestern showdown between the Colts and the Bears. The latest spread I have says 6.5 for the Colts. <\/p>\n
I have to say, I\u2019ll be rooting for the Bears to win. Now, having grown up in Michigan and Minnesota, rooting for the Bears doesn\u2019t exactly come naturally. It\u2019s as bad as, say, rooting for Notre Dame or the Yankees, but it\u2019s certainly not normal for me. But the way I figured it out was thinking about what jersey I\u2019d want. I like Brian Urlacher\u2019s athleticism and hustle, and he always comes off as a decent guy in interviews. I\u2019ve had Thomas Jones on my fantasy team a couple times because he always goes later than he should. On the other side, there\u2019s nobody on the Colts I\u2019d be particularly interested in. I\u2019d take a Cato June jersey just because he\u2019s a Michigan guy, but that\u2019s about it. So, I have a jersey interest.<\/p>\n
The other thing, of course, is the Manning thing. I just don\u2019t like him. He has the well-documented anti-clutch thing going back to his college days. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever<\/strong> seen anybody roll over and play dead worse than Manning in that bowl game his senior year against Nebraska. Lots of people were screaming and yelling that he should have won the Heisman over Charles Woodson that year, but anybody who saw that game (except maybe some really partisan Tennessee fans) knew that the right choice had been made. I hate the way he\u2019s omnipresent in ads despite never winning anything substantial until this year. I hate the way he comes off in interviews; it always seems like he\u2019s calculated exactly what to say to maximize his PR value, every answer seems canned and he seems totally ungenuine. Robotic. Pete Sampras in cleats. I hate the way he threw his own teammates under the bus last year after they lost to Pittsburgh. I can\u2019t stand the ridiculous expressions on his face when something doesn\u2019t go well in football games, he just looks like a petulant six-year-old. And I get a kick out of him being Brady\u2019s punching bag, at least until this year, and a kick out of him being his generation\u2019s Marino. I\u2019ll miss that if he wins (much like ESPN\u2019s Eric Neel<\/a>.)<\/p>\n So, while I\u2019m no Bears fan, I\u2019ll be rooting for Chicago, at least a little. And since the season outcome is already determined, I\u2019m going to pick the Bears as well, just because I don\u2019t want to be rooting against my own pick. I have to say, though, that I was much happier with the spread at seven, because Colts by one TD sounds pretty much about right. The AFC was clearly better, and most of the season I\u2019ve said that I\u2019d pick the AFC team in the Super Bowl. I think the Colts will win. But they just might not cover. I must say, I have a hard time picking a team that lost to the Texans (and looked horrible<\/strong> doing it) as Super Bowl champs. <\/p>\n If I\u2019m the Bears, I hand off almost the entire first half, rotating Jones and Benson in and out to keep them fresh. Don\u2019t worry about being down by a TD in the first half, just keep pounding away patiently. The Colts run D has looked good lately, but I think they can be ground down. Keep battering away, and when the Colts drop the eighth (or ninth) guy in the box, start running play-action on early downs. If the Bears can do that, they can win… or at least cover.<\/p>\n Or something. We\u2019re having a big party, so I probably won\u2019t even see that much of the game, but it\u2019ll be fun nonetheless. <\/p>\n Mostly, I\u2019ll miss football season when it\u2019s over. Football\u2019s offseason is just way<\/strong> too long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well, well, the last game of the season is finally upon us. The big Midwestern showdown between the Colts and the Bears. The latest spread I have says 6.5 for the Colts. I have to say, I\u2019ll be rooting for the Bears to win. Now, having grown up in Michigan and Minnesota, rooting for the … Continue reading Super Bowl Pick<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}