Super Bowl XLI

Peyton Manning seemed to spend much of last night with a look on his face that said, “hey, nobody told me the Super Bowl was going to be this wet!” Then again, that’s better than Rex Grossman’s look of “hey, those cars are coming at me really fast.”
On the whole, from what I was able to see, it was a pretty solid game, not one of the greatest or most well-played Super Bowls but the outcome stayed in doubt into the fourth quarter, which is good. And it was worth it to see Manning finally win it just to hear the grinding of gears by sportswriters suddenly switching directions after years of branding him with the scarlet “L”.
I have to think that one beneficiary of Manning’s victory is Eli. Now, Eli has plenty of problems, but one less is having the burden of thinking that even if he got as good as his brother that still would never be enough to silence the critics, the boo birds, etc. This season, Eli can go back to worrying about living up to his family, not living down to it.

8 thoughts on “Super Bowl XLI”

  1. I too was glad to see the Colts win. Dungy, Manning, Harrison, etc… are class acts and deserve the accolades.
    I agree that Grossman had the “deer in the headlights” look most of the night. I think it is interesting that the team that was supposed to be the defensive powerhouse was not overwhelming on defense (or offense).
    Hats off to Manning, Rhodes, Addai and the Colts defense on an outstanding night.

  2. Rex will take more share of the blame than is his due, since the offensive line is ALWAYS anonymous. However, one thing Manning can do (And his brother can’t, but neither could Montana, or any normal homo sapien) is throw 35 yards downfield, across the field, under pressure, off the wrong foot. They can’t teach you that in quarterback school. And in Physics class, they probably tell you it can’t be done.
    I agree with Richard Sandomir. The game needed some mud.

  3. The game needed some mud.
    Ice. Its wrong to play football in early February in the rain. Its supposed to be snowing.
    It was a good football game. I thought the ads were lame this year for the most part.

  4. Rex looked as bad as any NFL quarterback as I’ve seen.
    Oh sure he was under some pressure, and he does have the athleticism to avoid outright sacks, and sure he can throw the ball okay.
    But a half-dozen times he ducked away from pressure and just heaved the ball blindly into coverage. Good quarterbacks don’t do that. They either throw the ball away or stand in for the extra half second it takes to actually look before they throw.
    The two picks were balloon balls. Maybe Grossman’s hand slipped on the second one when he underthrew his receiver by 10 yards, but the first pick was a floater no professional quarterback should ever throw.

  5. Good thoughts re Eli & the family, etc, Crank. I think you may be on to something there.
    Rex was a dog. Period.
    And what was up with that pre-game show? Anyone?

  6. Lovie Smith meet Grady Little.
    I constantly am amazed at the “stick with ’em” phenomenon in football. Clearly, Grossman was out of his depth and that there was no way he was going to engineer any type of scoring drive beyond a few yards. I am not saying Brian Griese is great but sometimes you take out your starter (in baseball) for someone not techinically as capable but perhaps better suited to the job right then. No way Rex should have been on the field in the 4th qtr. and definitely not after the first pick.

  7. Well, here’s the thing about the “stick with em” idea in football. It’s only around when the backup kind of stinks. I mean, I think it’s OBVIOUS that Lovie had as little (probably less) confidence in Griese as he did in Grossie. If he had Jeff Garcia backing up Grossman, you think for one second he’d be sticking with him?
    Sir, I say to you “hah.”

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