Superbowl XLI

The Superbowl is this Sunday at Dolphin Stadium. It's Chicago vs Indianapolis for anyone who doesen't know.

For those interested, vote for your team of choice! Discuss any opinions you have concerning the Superbowl.

Manning has to choke, he just HAS TO. It's in his nature. Plus, I cannot imagine the espn cock sucking that would ensue if indianapolis did win.

I can be a bears fan for a single game.

Quast said:

Manning has to choke, he just HAS TO. It's in his nature. Plus, I cannot imagine the espn cock sucking that would ensue if indianapolis did win.

Oh come on, there will be ESPN cock sucking no matter who wins. It's what ESPN does.

This is also the first Super Bowl in like 8 years where I really don't care who wins. I guess I didn't really care during that Oakland/Tampa Bay game but that was such a boring Super Bowl that it doesn't really count. Every other time I've had bias one way or another against one of the teams involved.

But it'll be fun not caring for once. I just want to get drunk and see a good game and good commercials.

I dislike football but it's a million years better then our excuse for hockey.

*yawn* American football is no more exciting to me than golf.

Golf is awesome, man.

All of the Bears propaganda flying around here is seriously pissing me off. I can't wait till this stupid thing is over.

Bears, 402 to zip.

Everyone is going crazy here in the Indy vicinity. We had a "blue friday" today at work where face painting was encouraged (thankfully nobody went that far). Being Swedish I don't really care about American football, but apparently I'm going to be watching the game at some party thing. Free food, I guess.

I'm only watching for the commercials.

Quast said:

Manning has to choke, he just HAS TO.

It's not just him. Tony Dungy also hasn't been able to pull it off in the past few years at Indianapolis, and couldn't pull it off in Tampa Bay (they won a Super Bowl as soon as he left). Also, I forget whether or not it's Indy's owner or general manager... anyway, the guy who's the owner/GM is the game guy who presided over the Buffalo Bills when they went to four straight Super Bowls, and lost them all.

I still think Indianapolis will win (against my better judgement), but... GO BEARS!

Kid Airbag said:

Oh come on, there will be ESPN cock sucking no matter who wins. It's what ESPN does.

To an extent, and granted the colts aren't the patriots, but peyton is a manning and a high profile player that rex just isn't.

You didn't by chance watch the patriots-vikings mnf game early in the season did you? THAT my friend, was espn cock sucking at its finest. You could've made a deadly drinking game out of these phrases:

"tom brady"
"bill belichick"
"yeah, the patriots are really a team unknowns"
"brady isn't that well known"
"3 rings" - This was said over a dozen times before i stopped counting
"dynasty"
"brady doesn't do tv commercials, like some other quarterbacks" - This was said at least twice. Of course he has done commercials however.

I think indy will win. if they can stop the bears running game and force rex grossman to throw it's over. with all the talk about how not good he is will make him take chances to proove that he's not bad and lead to incompletions and interceptions. he's like brett farve that way.

manning is doing better out of the pocket than he has in the past, and has more experience than grossman. he makes big plays and can pick up defensive schemes better than most QB's. I think thats big. also if the indy offensive line can stop brian urlacher (who is overrated, IMO), then indy will be able to make good runs.

after that it comes to special teams, which both teams have excelent kickers. I think the bears have the edge in kick returns though.

anyway, it'll prolly be a close game.

Ha, I didn't even know who's going until I opened this thread.

The bears, only because most of my friends are going for the Colts.

Quast said:

You didn't by chance watch the patriots-vikings mnf game early in the season did you? THAT my friend, was espn cock sucking at its finest. You could've made a deadly drinking game out of these phrases:

"tom brady"
"bill belichick"
"yeah, the patriots are really a team unknowns"
"brady isn't that well known"
"3 rings" - This was said over a dozen times before i stopped counting
"dynasty"
"brady doesn't do tv commercials, like some other quarterbacks" - This was said at least twice. Of course he has done commercials however.

If I watched it, I gave it the typical Monday Night Football treatment and muted the ESPN talking heads.

It's about eight times as bad for me, too, living in Boston two thirds of the year. If anything I'd root for the Colts just because all the douchebag Pats fans around here are rooting against them.

Carnevil said:

It's not just him. Tony Dungy also hasn't been able to pull it off in the past few years at Indianapolis, and couldn't pull it off in Tampa Bay (they won a Super Bowl as soon as he left). Also, I forget whether or not it's Indy's owner or general manager... anyway, the guy who's the owner/GM is the game guy who presided over the Buffalo Bills when they went to four straight Super Bowls, and lost them all.

I don't buy into that kind of stuff too much. We went through the same thing with Bill Cowher - "THE GUY CAN'T WIN THE BIG GAME!"

But when you look at what Cowher did, which was make the playoffs something like 10 times in 15 seasons and reached six AFC Championship games and two Super Bowls, once you get to that point it can be as much luck as anything. Maybe you just run into the hotter team or maybe you lose a playoff game on a running into the kicker penalty.

Same thing with with Dungy, his teams are always successful enough to at least have a shot at the Super Bowl, which is more than most coaches can say. Your point about his tenure with the Bucs - Tampa Bay won that Super Bowl on the back of their defense which was almost entirely constructed by Dungy and his patented cover-2 scheme.

And the director of football operations or whoever you're talking about - if he is the guy who built those Bills teams of the early 90s, all I can say is, the guy really knows how to build a football team. To use the fact that none of his teams ever actually won a title against him is pretty unfair.

Point is, all you can do as a coach/GM is put a team that has a reasonable shot of reaching the Super Bowl on the field. What happens after that is rarely, if ever, down to the coach's "ability to win the big game."

Kid Airbag said:

coach speech

Quoted for truth.

Also,



URLACHER'S READYYYYYYYYYY

but really, what it's all about is

E A G L E S

Before I die they will win a championship

I disagree. I think leadership and coaching plays a huge role, especially during a rigorous time like the playoffs, and especially the Super Bowl. I'm not saying Dungy doesn't have what it takes to win the big game (I can't fault anyone for losing to the Patriots (though they shouldn't have won that game two weeks ago, seeing as half the Pats were really banged up from the Chargers a week ago and had the flu, but I'm sure glad they won)), but we'll see what happens Sunday.

However, I WILL say that about Schottenheimer :P

I'm not saying coaching and leadership don't play a role in the playoffs, but I just think it's unfair to pin a tag like "CAN'T WIN THE BIG GAME" on a coach.

If the Colts lose on Sunday, I really don't think it'll have anything to do with Dungy's ability to coach in pressure situations like the playoffs.

It works both ways, too. Is Bill Belichick such a genius because Tom Brady plays out of his mind in the 4th quarter of playoff games?

While I don't subscribe to the Belichick-genius theory to begin with, if anything he's a genius because he's kept the Patriots so consistently good for so long. That kind of sustained success is what you can point out and say, "that's a good coach." The fact that Belichick drafted Tom Brady and let him keep playing in his first year even after Bledsoe was healthy again is what makes him a good coach, not anything in particular special he's done during big games.

What happens in the "big games" is almost entirely on the players and whether or not they execute.

I will agree with you, though, that Schottenheimer seems to be a special case at this point in time. Not at first, when he was accruing the reputation of "CAN'T WIN THE BIG ONE," but now that he's been unfortunately tagged as a non-clutch coach, it's screwing with his head. Case in point - he loses in 2004 with "Martyball" tactics, the fans scream and whine about it, he has the opportunity in 2006 again in a perfect situation for "Martyball" to work, but he's so scared of losing that way again that he completely abandons his traditional gameplan and ends up losing anyway.

BEAR DOWN CHICAGO BEARS

Hah, football. I'd rather sleep.

Go Bears! That's my vote.

Kid Airbag said:

coach stuff

I completely agree. a good coach can only do so much. he really doesn't dictate what goes on on the field. he is the head, and then theres his assistant, the offensive coordinantor, the defensive coordinator, the special teams coach, the QB coach and other assistants. but that still has no sway on what goes on in the field, unless you have an untalented team that relies on being heavily coached.

the line of scrimmage is a dynamic thing. you can call a play and run it ten times and each time it could have vastly different results. a defensive back doesn't pick up his block and allows a sack. a linebacker is two seconds two slow and allows the running back to slip by him for gain of 23 yards. how is it the coaches fault? was it bill parcells fault that tony romo bobbled that game winning field goal snap (I'm still laughing at that BTW)? if anything the loosing team will be the one with the QB that fails under pressure.

personally, I feel that indy's offense is better than chicago's overrated defense. if I had to live or die by a QB, I would go with peyton manning.

VileSlay said:

a good coach can only do so much.

Unless, of course, he's...

Colts win, Bears lose, boohoo. :(

Grossman is not college material.

Grossman looks like he just came out of high school.

Colts win. SWEET!

However, I'm dissapointed about the lack of humerous commercials shown this year. Most of them really stunk.

Inferno said:

However, I'm dissapointed about the lack of humerous commercials shown this year. Most of them really stunk.

I kinda liked those office survivor ones, especially the pit of promotion, and the garmin gps ultraman spoof. I also thought the bud light slapping commercial was pretty damn funny.

as far as the game goes, it was pretty damn ugly, from what I saw. a little bit in to the third quarter I got some bad news and missed a bunch. posted a blog about it, in case anyone cares.

anyway, the rain was killer. once manning got in to his rythm and they forced grossmen to throw more it was over. it was pretty wild how many turnovers there were in the game, especially when they turned on back to back plays. I for one am happy with the outcome, although I did think the scoring would be a bit higher.

Congrats to Tony Dungy, Peyton Manning, and the rest of the Colts. They definitely proved themselves to be the better team. They couldn't have gotten off to a worse start, but responded to it marvelously. Once they collected themselves, they completely dominated the rest of the game.