Perfect matchup? Colts-Saints leaves something to be desired
This is the Super Bowl we wanted. It's not the way we wanted it, but it's the one we wanted.
Well, maybe not you in Minnesota or you in New York. You guys wanted to see the Vikings or Jets in Super Bowl XLIV, which is fine. They're your teams. But the rest of us -- even those of us with no rooting interest in the Super Bowl, other than seeing the best possible matchup -- wanted Indianapolis vs. New Orleans.
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| Vikings coach Brad Childress' entire season came down to a coin flip. (AP) |
So long as we can overlook two inconvenient truths.
1. The Colts should be 18-0 and headed for perfection.
2. The Vikings should've had the ball at least once in overtime, too.
Other than that, hey, Super Bowl XLIV is alive and kicking. Colts and Saints? I'm loving it. These have been the best two teams in the NFL all season, not just in the playoffs, a statement I base on this fact: They were the last two undefeated teams in the NFL. Picking the best two teams out of a 32-team league isn't an exact science, but it's safe to conclude that Super Bowl XLIV got 'em. This is the dream game.
So why does it feel just a little bit ... lacking?
Sorry. That was a rhetorical question. I don't need you to answer it for me, because I already know the answer. And so do you. I don't care who you're rooting for next week in Miami -- Saints, Colts, neither -- you know why this wholesome game feels just a little bit empty.
1. The Colts should be 18-0 and headed for perfection.
2. The Vikings should've had the ball at least once in overtime, too.
Why complain now? I'll tell you why. Because legacies are at stake. Hell, legacies have already been etched. We're just waiting for the final score of the Super Bowl to tell us which legacy will be remembered strongest.
If the Colts win, they'll be the team that could have been -- screw it; should have been -- perfect. They'll be the team that once and for all could have shut Mercury Morris' gloating mouth down there in Miami, where he boasts every year about his 1972 Dolphins being the last NFL team to achieve perfection. He's right, of course, which is why he's so irritating.
The Colts have tried to win 16 games this season. They won all 16. That's a pretty strong statement right there. Every time they showed up at a stadium with the sole purpose of winning, they won. They showed up at the RCA Dome on Dec. 27 against the Jets with the sole purpose of getting Peyton Manning some work to keep him sharp for the playoffs, and it happened. Manning played 2½ quarters, and after he came out of the game the Colts blew a lead and lost to the Jets -- the same Jets they dominated on Sunday. The following week, perfection gone, they showed up in Buffalo with the purpose of resting starters and preventing Manning from suffering frostbite. Mission accomplished. The Bills won 30-7 in the snow, and Manning flew home with 10 fingers and 10 toes.
History-rewriting Colts fans -- who booed their lungs out Dec. 27 against the Jets and spent the following week bitching and moaning on local radio shows about the Colts' decision to tank it -- will revise their opinion and tell you a Super Bowl is all that matters, but it's not. The Colts had something more than the Super Bowl in their hands. They had perfection. And after earning that right for 14 games, they handed it back in the 15th week. That will be their legacy. Don't think it won't. Simply for the sake of this argument, let's assume the Colts beat the Saints next week, and then let's fast forward 10 years: Do you really think history will remember these Colts simply as the team that won their second Super Bowl in four seasons? Of course not. History will remember the Colts as Super Bowl champions who could have been perfect but couldn't be bothered to go for it.
Anyway, that's old news. If the Colts win it'll be refreshed, but for now, it's old news.
What happened Sunday night at New Orleans still stings. Maybe it doesn't sting you, if you're a Saints fan. But it damn sure stings the Vikings and it even stings an impartial observer like me -- a guy who already had called the Saints the most talented team in football back in December but who would have liked to watch them to prove it in a more equitable setting than the NFL's inequitable overtime.
The most important call of that game wasn't a Brett Favre audible or a Sean Payton replay review. The most important call was "heads." That was the 50-50 chance the Vikings took when they were asked to call the overtime coin flip, and when the coin stopped rolling and showed "tails," the game was essentially over. After 60 minutes and 137 snaps from scrimmage and 46 first downs and 722 total yards, the game came down to five minutes of keep-away. New Orleans got the coin flip. New Orleans got the ball. New Orleans got the field goal. New Orleans got the game.
What did Minnesota get? Minnesota got screwed. It happens every year to some team, but it has never happened as egregiously as this. The Vikings played 16 games in the regular season, then another in the playoffs, all to get to this point, to their biggest game of the season. And one game short of the Super Bowl, pushed to the limit into overtime by New Orleans, the Vikings lost the game because they lost the coin flip?
Nonsense. Complete, unadulterated nonsense. Even a Saints fan can agree with that point, because that could have been your team. Show some empathy and imagine devoting the past five months to your team, and seeing it approach the apex -- only to be knocked back to earth by the bounce of a coin. It's absurd.
But that, too, is history. The tumble of the coin, like the tanking of the Colts, happened. Yet here we are anyway -- New Orleans and Indianapolis. Best two teams in football. The best possible Super Bowl.
I'll get excited about it soon, I promise.
Just give me another day or two.
