Roman Numerology

So a lot of people have been asking me who I'm rooting for in the Super Bowl (ok, not really, that's just a construct to start this thing off). The bye-week story seemed to be that these were two evenly matched teams with no good-guy/bad-guy issues. There are no TOs to root against, no arrogant cheating-coach overdogs, and no aging superstars who want one last shot at a ring.


It also happens that these two teams are involved in the complex calculus of teams I root for in the NFL (yeah, I stole that line from King Kaufman, big deal. It's not like he's Rick Reilly, going around trademarking all his bits). So the reality is that no matter which team wins, I'll be ok with it for a change. I say "for a change," because I'm not sure the team I was rooting for has won more than 3 times; Giants in XLII, (and even that had a caveat), Bears in XX (I didn't live in Chicago yet, but c'mon, nobody outside of the state of Massachusettes was rooting for the Patriots), and Broncos in XXXII (only because I wanted Elway to get one so he'd be ahead of Marino, who I always thought was a punk and a loser). There were a few times I didn't really care that much (Patriots/Panthers in XXXVIII? Ugh, whatever. I was more interested in the long roman numeral than the game). There were also, of course, times when I cared a lot; two of them, to be exact (XVI and XXIII). Both times I was crushed by the same Notre Dame quarterback, cementing my hatred of two pro franchises, the one in San Francisco and the one in South Bend.

So anyway, this is the first time, at least in recent memory, that I've had two teams I liked in the game. How to distinguish between them? I mentioned a complex calculus, here's an in-no-particular-order ranking...



Bengals: Ok, this part isn't so complex. Still rooting for them pretty much no matter who they play. I grew up there, went to my first game there, and even attended a playoff game in the run-up to XXIII, the infamous "Joe Nash injury game" that you no doubt remember (Seahawks DL Joe Nash faked a leg cramp on every 3rd down to slow down the Bengals no-huddle offense). Or at least you would remember it if it hadn't happened 3 hours after the "Fog Bowl" at Soldier Field.



Bears: I have a really complex relationship with the Bears. I either want them to be 13-3 or 3-13. It has to do with the sports talk radio. It's cool when they're good, and schadenfreudtastic when they're bad. Seasons like this most recent one, where there are mixed expectations and mediocre results, are the worst. The hiring of Mike Martz as offensive coordinator makes me happy, because it means both 13-3 and 3-13 are in play.


Those are the easy ones, and I dare say the top 2. No matter who they play, I'm rooting for them, and if they play each other, there's no doubt I'm rooting for the Bengals. Then it gets tricky. There are a bunch of teams I don't care about, and a few I root against actively (PIT, BAL, CLE, DET and MIN for divisional reasons, SF for historical reasons, WAS for racist nickname reasons). There are some who will note an omission in that last set of parentheses and maintain I can never really be a Bears fan because I don't hate Green Bay with the passion of a thousand burning suns. Those people are stupid. Green Bay, in theory, is what all sports franchises should be. Publicly owned, part of the community, smaller market that actually gets behind the team (I'm looking in your direction here, Jacksonville). The others I root for:

San Diego: Yeah, ok, it's mostly about the throwback uniforms, but what I really like is the restraint they've shown in not becoming the Los Angeles Chargers.

Tennesee: Hard to explain this one, but I like the fact that they have had the same coach for 15 years.

But neither of them are in the Super Bowl, now, are they? I'm clearly procrastinating here. So let's get into it...

I really should dislike the Colts. They were a classic bedrock franchise of the NFL, and then they packed up in the middle of the night and moved to Indianapolis, ripping the hearts out of Barry Levinson and everyone else in Baltimore. Peyton Manning destroyed my Wildcats in a bowl game (something I never forgave Keyshawn Johnson for). They play in a dome. They once employed Jim Harbaugh. But here's the thing...screw Baltimore. First of all, it was 25 years ago, you really should be over it by now. Second of all, you guys went and stole another team, so you got your blood revenge (for which I thank you, because you made Cleveland miserable, and that makes me happy). Manning? Eh, it was the Citrus Bowl. I was so hung over for that game, I don't remember it much. As for Harbaugh, well, everyone makes mistakes.

But Indy has a lot going for it, both as a team and as a fan base. They're right in between my other favorite teams, three hours from Chicago, two from Cincinnati. I once spent the Friday afternoon before a game day in downtown Indianapolis. It was a regular season game, but if I recall correctly it was fairly important. Walking around Monument Circle and the surrounding few blocks, I was stunned. Almost half of the people walking around were wearing Colts jerseys. And yeah, a lot of them were #18, but there were a ton of Marvin Harrisons and Edge James and Dwight Freeneys also. Of those not wearing jerseys, there were a ton of Colts sweatshirts and hats, and even a couple of guys wearing horseshoe ties. And not only was this not the playoffs, this was a Friday. One last note on Indy fans. You'll rarely see Manning give the "quiet down" wave, because those guys act, when the Colts are on the field, like they're at a golf tournament. Once the play is over, they applaud, even cheer, for about 10 seconds, then it's back to near silence. That's why any time you watch a Colts home game, you can hear everything Manning says.

As for the on-the-field stuff, the Colts don't do much that's fancy. They don't run guys around or shift guys four times before the snap. In fact, they seem like they only have 3 or 4 formations. If Wayne is in the slot left for the first play of the drive, he's probably there for the entire drive. There used to be a lot of whining about Manning's machinations and gyrations before the play, but I think people understand now that it works. It's scary how well Manning reads defenses, and how well the offense has been tailored to his strengths.

New Orleans? It's one of my favorite places to visit, which is not exactly a stunning insight. But I should dislike the Saints primarily because of a really picky thing. "Who Dat?" is really similar to the Bengals rallying cry of "Who Dey?" While "Who Dat?" has been around at Southern University and/or Alcorn State forever, the Saints reportedly didn't start using it until 1983, while the Bengals started with the "Who Dey?" in 1981. Now everyone assumes that Cincinnati stole it from New Orleans, because what the hell would Cincinnati be doing with something before New Orleans? But that's stupid, and I actually think it's kind of cool, in the age of the generic stadium with the Jumbotron that has to tell you when to cheer with the same graphics package that every other team has, to have something unique like that. As for the fans, I think the national media makes more of the whole "lifting the city up after Katrina" thing than the locals do. But they're into it, and they don't really seem all that bandwagon-y. It seems like how you feel about the Saints determines how you feel about Reggie Bush. I thought the guy handled it perfectly when he came into the league the season after Katrina. He negotiated sponsorship deals for himself that demanded the company make significant contributions to the city as well. He gave his his share of merchandising revenue to relief efforts (thus why I was willing to own something with the name "Bush" on it in 2006), and he was very conscious of doing good without calling a whole lot of attention to the good he was doing. How many 23 year olds can handle something like that? Ok, sure, it was probably a shrewd agent, and yeah, it makes for a good joke that he didn't need the money, he still had plenty left from his days at USC, but still...

As for the on-the-field, dang is Sean Payton good. They throw like nine guys at you, all with different skills, all of them really good at what they do. Their defense is exciting, in that they give up a lot of big plays, but they make a lot of big plays. In other words, they are the perfect opponent for an entertaining Super Bowl.

As I write this, I realize something. The point of this whole thing was to tell you who I was rooting for, and truth be told, I haven't figured it out yet. I'm leaning Colts, but it's a very, very slight lean, and it may have more to do with my prediction than my feelings.

So let's get that part out of the way. Every schlub with a picks column, or a football blog, or an internet connection and a blogspot account (present company included) is going to make an "official" pick. I'll go one better, I'll make a prediction about the predictions. A whole lot of guys who do this for a living are going to look at the line (hovering between Colts -5 and -6, depending on where you look) and take the ultimate copout by saying "Hmmm this feels like a field goal game" and thus default their pick to the Saints. It's a copout because they're really just picking a close game, which is much safer than saying either that the underdog will win outright or the favorite will win big. Since nobody really cares about my pick, I'm willing to do that. I try to make my Super Bowl pick as soon after the Championship games are over, just because you get so much crap over the next two weeks, you can talk yourself into anything. Freeney's injury is big, but it's not as big as we all think. It won't matter that much in the end. The Colts just have too much offense. They have shown they can win 14-12 games and 45-38 games. I think this one ends up Colts 38, Saints 24.

That's what I think will happen. Is that what I want to happen? I'm surprised to say, I still don't know...