Not-so-evil empire

This is a comment meant for The Mayor of Man Town is a Chick on the Ed Zone, but it is masquerading as a post here on OB1og.

Why?

Well, just because I haven’t been very active here this month, for much the same reasons as Ed, and the comment was long enough to consider as a post in its own right. Maybe…

Jason had the same thought, so now there are twin comment threads on the Zone and BBn. I won’t drop this over there though.

What I really owe my six dear readers are the photos I took at the Pats/Jets playoff game a few weeks ago. I haven’t gotten around to slamming them into Flickr yet. I’ll do my best to get that done this weekend.

Anyway, on to what I was going to drop as a comment:

As Bill Simmons aptly put it in When did hate take over sports?, the Pats are the Yankees and the Colts are the Sox.

The Colts finally knocked off their Not-So-Evil Empire to make it to the final game. Let’s see if they can knock off that Bears team. I don’t know that I can make a good choice on whom to root for between the two, but more on that in sec.

I agree with both of you in that this loss did not sting at all. There is a small frustration that since they more-or-less had it in the 4Q until that bonehead 12-man huddle, which arguably cost them a chance for a first down to run out the clock. Of course, even without the penalty, the result could have been the same with just a 1st and 10.

I never expected they’d make it this far given all the injuries on defense and the craptacular WR corps we sported this year, but sure enough, they were there on foreign turf, with a lead, in the closing minutes. Unfortunately, the Colts never made that turnover we were hoping for, so they got it done. Manning didn’t blow it this time.

Let me be clear in that I’m not making any excuses for the loss either. When the two Pats players I hate most, Mankins and Samuel, score touchdowns, and I’m left wishing Artrelle Hawkins was in the game, we’re in trouble. At least it didn’t come down to a field goal from #4 to seal our fate. That hurts worse than any TD Manning could throw, which come to think of it, he wasn’t responsible for the game-winning TD, so all-in-all, it was the best possible way to lose at the last minute…

As for who I’ll root for, it will be the Bears, which I am conflicted about. I still remember that hurting the put on us the first time we made it to the Super Bowl and their damn Super Bowl Shuffle. Their QB sux, but hopefully their stout Defense and running game can prevail.

I would root Colts if anyone else but Manning — Sorgi anyone? — were the QB. I just can’t root for the guy. He’s talented as all get out, but I hate, hate, hate him. Is there a commercial he won’t do? Can he ever not pout? Did you see him as they fell to 21-3? He looked like he was going to cry, as usual, even though he had the potent offense and more than half a game to climb back in it. I just wish he kept throwing that deep ball so that he didn’t succeed.

Anyway, I am undecided on whether or not I’ll actually watch the game. I can’t look at Manning, unless he’s losing, so maybe I’ll monitor the web and decide if I should watch him cry or not. I certainly don’t want to see him win it.

The story I do appreciate is two Black Head Coaches made it the same year when none had ever done it before. I think this is good for the NFL and sports in general.

Go Bears!

Ugh…