A Few Thoughts Leading Up To The Super Bowl

It would be easy to say that I'm picking the Bears over the Colts in the Super Bowl because I like the Bears and don't particularly care for the Colts. And it would probably be true. However, I have several reasons that I think Chicago wins which I’ll get into later. However, it appears for the second weekend in a row, I'm in the minority in picking the Bears. At least for the NFC Championship game, Chicago was favored, but the point spread over the Saints was eventually under three, and three is how many points are factored in for home field advantage. Most "pundits" went for the Saints, and the trend (and 7 point spread) seems to be going Colts. Of course, I thought a lot of support the Saints got was from sportswriters wishing they would win because the New Orleans rebuilding story was much better copy. And I think it's the same reason the Colts are being pushed.

To begin with, if I hear one more time that "everybody wants Peyton Manning to win a Super Bowl", I'm going to vomit. I would actually be fine if the favorite son of Tennessee Mountain Trash never wins a Super Bowl. Yet, sportswriters love the guy. Seth Wickersham writes a NFL blog on ESPN.com, and he said after Manning’s post-AFC Championship press conference, all the reporters were more concerned with congratulating Manning than asking questions. I’m not real sure if sports "journalists" should be so openly rooting for a player. I think one reason is they love sports legacies. Chris Simms is a mediocre quarterback, but his father is Phil Simms, so he gets favorable media coverage (he was hyped as an early first round pick in the draft, but he somehow fell to the end of the third). It's the same with Manning who is the son of Archie Manning who was well loved for losing as a pro quarterback. I actually saw him referred to as a legend. Yet somehow, he managed to play fifteen years without playing for a team that finished with a winning record. I guess that is legendary.

Then there is the Tony Dungy situation. I don't know if it's been mentioned anywhere in the press, but both coaches are black. So, apparently, we now have proof that a black man can coach a team to the Super Bowl, although I've seen a lot of bad white coaches make the Super Bowl, so I would assume a good black coach can do it. Of course, out of 12 playoff quarterbacks, Steve McNair was the only black one. Does that mean teams should try to start white quarterback? Maybe Bobby Petrino should bench black Michael Vick for white Matt Schaub. Actually, he should, but not for skin tone reasons. Anyway, I find sportswriters have obsessions with "social justice" or their perception of it, so it's been pretty clear they've been rooting for a black coach to win a Super Bowl so they write heart warming stories about the American Dream. And Tony Dungy was their beloved guy (find me an article focusing on Tony Dungy that does not include some variation of the word "class") early in the process. That's why I find it ironic that technically Lovie Smith was the first black coach to make the Super Bowl. He's only been on the scene for a few years, so I think after so many years of rooting for Dungy, the press will stick with him. If Dungy wasn’t coaching the Colts (and by definition Peyton Manning), I could certainly root for him since he did play for the Steelers. In fact, next year I will be rooting for a black coach to win the Super Bowl as long as it’s the one who coaches the Steelers now. As for what two black head coaches in the Super Bowl means now, not really that much. Just remember this little fact – very few coaches have made the Super Bowl period. From the 1970-79 seasons, nine coaches filled the 20 possible head coaching slots in the Super Bowl. Four coaches (Chuck Noll, Tom Landry, Bud Grant and Don Shula) filled 15 of them. I think a bigger event for black coaches was when ex-Philly coach Ray Rhodes got the Green Bay job. He proved that even lousy black coaches can get another job because of their "head coaching experience".

I knew this column was coming. Bill Simmons is once again crying about where the Super Bowl is being played. He’s happy now that the game is in Miami, because it’s a real city, not like Jacksonville. He whined incessantly on a blog two years ago about it. Every day was some other complaint about the Super Bowl being in Jacksonville. He honestly seems to believe that the Super Bowl should be held in places he wants to go. He made it worse by skipping the Super Bowl last year because it was being held in Detroit and he had already been to the last three. Which basically means he’s telling his readers (very few who have probably ever been to the Super Bowl) that he skipped the biggest sporting event in America (on someone else’s dime) because the party scene in Detroit is not up to his standards. I think we should all stand up and cheer for Bill Simmons having the guts to stand up to the NFL because they chose to let Detroit host the Super Bowl. What an ass.