Malaya and me ran errands Sunday afternoon, and worked clearing out some space on the patio and rearranging plants and such. Finally, around 6:30 we ordered a pizza and killed some time in blockbuster while they cooked it, before taking it home and sitting down to eat and watch the game on tape. We buzzed through the whole thing in about an hour, so if you're looking for reaction to the commercials, you'll have to look elsewhere, since I didn't watch a one.
I hadn't paid much attention to the game during the run up; I made my prediction a couple of weeks ago and said I wasn't going to waste any time on the pregame hype. And for the most part, I did not. I read the Sports Guy's humor columns from Miami, and glanced over the expert picks on ESPN.com, but I didn't read any big game previews or pay attention to the analysis. And I think I was happier for it. I was certainly more productive, during the past week of not surfing sports news (other than daily NBA score checks).
My prediction wasn't very good;
Indy won 29-17, after I'd predicted they would win 20-16. I was correct on the victor, but since the spread was Indy by 7, I would have lost money had I been foolish enough to wager some. I was almost very accurate; Indy led 22-17 in the 3rd quarter, and the only additional points came on a long interception return, but let's be honest; Indy could have scored more if they'd needed to in the 4th quarter. They were moving the ball at will; they were just playing it really safe and handing off a lot to keep the clock running, and since they could clearly see that the Bears' offense wasn't capable of driving anywhere.
I didn't read many game predictions, but was surprised to see how many people had picked quite high scores. Lots of the "experts" were saying something like 38-31, and while I could imagine the Colts putting up more than 30 points (thought I thought it unlikely), but how in the hell did anyone think the Bears were going to? They scored 39 on New Orleans in the NFC Championship, but half of that came in garbage time on a short field after NO kept failing on 4th down desperation attempts. In the Superbowl the Bears scored 17, but that came on a kick off return, a 57 yard drive of which about 55 came on one run, and a field goal after a short drive thanks to an Indy turn over. They only gained 250 yards and had under 22 minutes time of possession -- their offense wasn't any good and I could see them winning, but only if the field conditions were poor and the Bears' defense played really well.
They got the field; it rained heavily through most of the game, but the Bears' D was not much of a factor. Really, Indy should have had a blow out; they kicked 3 short field goals and missed a 4th, and fumbled another time in scoring position, so they could easily have had 10 more points, and could have scored at least another TD in the 4th quarter if they'd needed to. In retrospect, I should have made a bolder prediction based on the conferences. All 4 of the final AFC teams were pretty clearly better than any team from the NFC, and after Indy beat Baltimore in Baltimore, and then outlasted NE in a shootout at home, why did anyone seriously think the offenseless-Bears could beat them on a neutral field?
That being said, what if the Bears had won? Say Indy dropped that interception they returned, and the Bears got a fluke TD late, and Indy couldn't come back. Who the hell is the MVP? They never give it to anyone on the losing team, and Payton's numbers weren't really very good. Indy's running game was great, but their two running backs split the numbers pretty evenly, and thus split their MVP votes. But who on the Bears would deserve the honor? Their QB was horrible, their running game was nothing aside from one 55 yard scamper, and no one on the defense did anything special. You couldn't give it to Hester, their return guy, not for touching the ball once in the entire game, and even if they gave out group awards, why would you reward their defense for giving up 450 yards? It might have been a repeat of the Baltimore win from a few years ago, when they gave it to their QB who did nothing but fail to lose it while the great, Ray Lewis-lead defense won the game -- except that Grossman threw two interceptions and looked consistently awful.
Anyway, that's it for football until September, and not-coincidentally, that's about it for me watching TV until next fall. I enjoy the occasional basketball game, but theere aren't any other sports I care about enough to watch on TV (well, maybe when Tiger's winning a major I'll tune in on a Sunday afternoon) and basically I only watch whatever Malaya's turned on, when we're in the same room at the same time. It's for the best anyway; more time to work, or not work, on my computer!
Labels: football
