Finishing Strong

Well Well Well

Tilam saves the day with an ASTOUNDINGLY close 27-13 Bears win prediction. Now, truth be told I was rooting for the Colts, but my money was on the Bears, so I take a minor victory here...but Tilam's prediction comes very close to the actual final score, and kudos need to be passed out, regardless of how painful it is for me.

Some observations:

- The Colts weren't spectacular, but they played good, solid football. Well above average on the performance scale. They played like a Super Bowl winning team.

- The Bears defense was fallible and was clearly outplayed by the Colts defense. The defense in Chi-town that I thought would win the championship showed up on the other side of the ball - little role reversal here, with the Colts defense playing like the Bears had played and vis-versa.

- Rex Grossman turned out, on the big stage, to be the weak link. He threw 2 interceptions, including the perfect pass to the Colts' Kelvin Hayden early in the 4th quarter for that touchdown return.

- Turnovers, in my opinion, were NOT that much of a factor - Manning threw 1 interception, Grossman 2. The Bears took 2 fumbles, the Colts 2. So total turnovers were 5-3 for the Colts.

- Having the ball for 16 minutes more than the Bears was a key for the Colts. Manning loves to pick apart defenses with short underneath passes, while their running game makes up for the difference, and they played that to perfection with the Bears soft zone and linebackers dropping into coverage. Too much short space, which is perfectly fine for Peyton... The Colts pretty much dominated in every offensive category; first downs (24-11), passing (239-154), rushing (191-111), and ran SIGNIFICANTLY more offensive plays than the Bears (81-48, nearly twice).

- Lovie Smith and the Bears will be back here within 2 years. He is too good a coach and they are too good a team not to have another shot - watch for the Bears to pick up, YES, a quarterback in the off season. Grossman is a decent quarterback, but they need a top notch QB to bring them to the promised land.

Some annoyances:

- God is a Colts fan? What is up with these references to "doing it with the Lord"? Sheesh...

- When are we going to STOP looking at the color of a coaches skin and just say "Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy are frikkin' quality coaches"? Yes, it is significant that they are black, but things become issues only if you make them out to be one - blame the media for this useless hype. It's a tired subject in my humble opinion...

In other sports news...

The Cubs (THE CUBS!) spent $300 million this off-season acquiring free agents in a huge effort to put a winning team on the field. I can see retaining Aramis Ramirez and signing Alfonso Soriano to high deals, but shoveling $40M to Ted Lilly? What is up with that? Lilly sucked with Seattle and the Yankees, what makes them think he's going to be successful with the Cubs? Then again, he could be the next coming of Kenny Rogers in Detroit...

Tiger's streak is over at the Dubai...oh wait, it's NOT over. His streak is still at 7, since the Dubai Classic is a European Tour event...sorry, but that's going to be a record with an asterisk if he breaks it, I want him to win 12 consecutive STARTS, not 12 consecutive PGA tour events...big difference in my book.

Time to scoot, more to come later...