Good Guy Super Bowl

A lot's been said over these two dragged out weeks where we're all repeatedly reminded how awesome it is to work in sports -- especially if you're not playing the Super Bowl. All athletes and celebs and every single sports radio show in America (except the Handsome Hour) seem to descend upon the host city. I will admit I rather enjoyed the fact that they had marginal-to-crappy weather in Miami most of this week. Serves you all right for rubbing the rest of our noses in it, jerkwads. Also, have fun trying this in Dallas next year. It actually snows in Dallas in Jan/Feb. Have fun with that.

Also, why can't we go back to those few years where there was only one week between the conference title games and the Super Bowl? They did a few times maybe ten or so years ago and I'm guessing it didn't work as well for the sponsors and host city and, well, basically everyone trying to make money off this event. You know who it did work out well for? Fans. You know, the people who, ostensibly, these games are being played for. I loved that. A week off sucks. From preseason games in late July through the NFC/AFC championship games, there is NFL football every single week. And then we just grind it to a halt for two weeks. So stupid and illogical. Of course, they could be like the BCS and take off 5 or 6 weeks and then play the Super Bowl in March, so I guess I should be thankful.

Anyway, here we (finally) are. Colts versus Saints and, honestly, unless you have some irrational hate for one of these teams, I think the majority of neutral fans (i.e., not a true fan of either) are in the boat I am -- it wouldn't be awful if either team won. Which is a rare place for the Super Bowl to be. Usually I really do or do not want to see a team win. Usually, it's the latter. Unless the Giants are in it, I'm usually rooting against someone. Two years ago was utterly awesome because not only was I rooting for my Giants, but I would have been rooting against the Patriots anyway.

For Boilerdowd, the season before was the ultimate. And now, here we are, with a game that matters probably more to him than me (since as for pro football, he's a Colts guy and a Drew Brees lover fan) but that I cannot wait to watch.

Neither team plays a whole lot of defense, though we've heard a lot of talk about the beating New Orleans put on Brett Favre. And that's fine, but Favre has always taken hits. The guy holds on to the ball and waits for a sandlot play to develop. He often throws at the last second and he also tries to throw a block sometimes. Make no mistake, though, the Saints gave up a lot of yards and points in that NFC title game. The Vikes couldn't stop turning the ball over and yet they still should have won. Crazy.

The Colts are surgical, as everyone talks about ad nauseum regarding Peyton, so I won't rehash it here. Suffice it to say, though, that when Tom Brady had marginal, unknown receivers back in 2006, he lost to the Colts and everyone said they needed to upgrade their receivers for Terrific Tom. The Pats then did that in a major way (Moss, Welker, Gaffney, etc.) and Handsome Tom still hasn't won a Super Bowl since the 2004 season. Manning, on the other hand, takes unknown receivers and turns them into stars. Funny how that works.

The Saints have been riding emotion for a long time now. They played like a machine for the first three months of the season, dispatching quality opponents like the Giants and Pats as though they didn't belong on the same field with the Saints. These weren't "solid wins" or clear victories -- these were destructions. One could argue that the G-men and the Pats were never the same after being de-pantsed by the Saints in New Orleans. The Giants were 5-0 heading to New Orleans, in what was billed as a test for the Saints. Turned out the Giants were pretenders, getting hammered and reeling a 3-8 finish. Ugh.

The Pats entered 7-3, got trounced, and went 3-2 down the stretch, flaming out in the first round of the playoffs.

My point? The Saints were a buzzsaw, absolutely mowing down anyone in their path. And then they sort of lost their way, losing their final three games. I knew this would be a problem, as they then had a bye week and it had been five weeks since they had won a game. You can't overstate how much repetition and mindsets factor into NFL success -- after all, it's one-and-done; you can't have a bad game and go get 'em tomorrow like in a playoff series in other sports.

The Saints got their act together in destroying the Cardinals and then put together a somewhat nervous performance against the Vikes. And here we are.

The Colts, meanwhile, are almost frighteningly methodical in how they flatten teams. No trash talking. No responding to remarks by idiots like the Jets. They, in what is unfortunately rare, let their play do all their talking. They go out there and ground their opponents into dust. How many times were the Colts even seriously challenged this year? I saw them in person here in Houston against the Texans and the Texans looked in control early, building a 23-7 lead, I believe. And then, predictably, the wheels came off because Peyton has something few others have -- complete confidence in his and his team's abilities as well as patience. It doesn't matter how long it takes for him to figure things out -- he will figure them out. The Patriots had outplayed the Colts all night in that November game famous for Bill Belichick's going for it on fourth down. But that call kind of overshadows how Peyton brought the Colts back from a 20-point deficit in the fourth quarter. That's incredible and few guys -- if any -- could do that to a Patriots team. The fourth down call never should have been an issue -- Peyton forced it to become one.

Another Colts tidbit that I have heard a few times and find myself completely agreeing with is that they haven't lost a single game they've tried to win. On its face, this sounds like a little kid argument: "Well, I wasn't trying!" But it's not. The Colts lost two games this season. One to the Jets, in which they held a third-quarter lead before the team inexplicably decided to fold the tent for the week and remove key players, such as Manning. And the other in the final week, in a snowy game against the Bills -- a game which I definitely agreed with yanking the starters since the game was truly rendered as meaningless as possible as a result of the previous week's dumb decision. The Colts should have gone for perfection, in my opinion. But they didn't and so now they're pissed and want to crush anyone in their path -- at least that's how I see it. So maybe it was a genius move. We'll never know for sure.

My (rambling) point is this.... we think the Colts are going to wind up the champs this weekend. As mentioned on the Handsome Hour, our loyalties are divided. Boilerdowd is a Colts fan who likes Drew Brees more than the supple, young, impressionable lads he "guided" as a counselor in the Purdue dorms -- and he's come to the conclusion that he wants the Colts to win. He also threw in the girl-like (no offense ladies) comment that he wants to see Drew do well, too. So, basically, he's like a mom who wants all the kids to get a trophy at the end of the soccer season. Yay!

Me, I'm pulling for the Saints all the way. I've been the Superdome to see Drew play, I (like many of you) watched him play in Ross-Ade and I really like pretty much everything about this Saints team. Again, this is not to disparage the Colts, who for the most part do everything the classy, right way (aside from going for perfect seasons, at which they are poor). And again as mentioned, if the Colts were to win, I'd be fine with Peyton having a second Super Bowl and would honestly hope he wins a few more to cement his status as the best QB ever -- because he really is.

The BS pick, as though you care:

Colts 38, Saints 35

Joe Tiller, Game Changer?

Was this man partially responsible for changing the game?

This is a bit off the current topics of the season, but since it's Super Bowl week, I thought it might be appropriate. I was listening to the radio today and every radio show in America is being done from "radio row" at the Super Bowl and Tiki Barber was on. He was discussing the current state of the game and, of course, the upcoming game this weekend. And a point he made really resonated with me and made me wonder if it was possible that Joe Tiller had some hand in changing the way the game of football is played....nationwide.

Tiki was discussing the Super Bowl combatants and he commented on how Indy's rushing offense is 29th in the league -- and how that doesn't matter at all, because of how surgical Peyton Manning is. Fair point. He went on to talk about how the position of running back is quickly becoming less relevant to the point where he expects it to soon be less relevant than ever. This is because everyone runs some variation of the spread offense and bubble screens and quick outs and slants -- when done precisely -- are just as effective as a first down run play that used to be the bread-and-butter of every offense out there. You always ran on first down unless you were some wild-ass, Bill Walsh offense. And he was considered kind of kooky when he first ran it in the NFL.

So yes, the West Coast offense existed -- and succeeded -- for a number years, starting with those '80s Forty-Niners teams. But it's safe to say everyone else mainly relied on the tried and true method of success (and the "conventional wisdom" of many football lifers): run on first down, run on second down, maybe pass on third down. Oh, and the quarterback spent almost all of his time under center. The shotgun was a gimmick, sort of, and something that good defenses felt they could use to their advantage because it was almost always a sign of a sure passing down.

Then something funny happened over the past ten years or so. Spread offenses took over. They say football is a "copycat" sport (see the ridiculous proliferation of the dumb-ass, 1940s Wildcat offense) and so as spread offenses began to succeed more, more teams began to institute them. This spread (no pun intended) like wildfire, burning through the college ranks and down to high school, to the point where the guy currently referred to as maybe the best college football player ever can't get comfortable taking a snap from center. Crazy.

Joe Tiller came to Purdue in 1997 and immediately implemented a spread offense, infamously called "basketball on grass," a term that is still used by know-nothing commentators today, even when Purdue is running more plays on the ground than in the air. But think back -- Cowboy Joe's system in 1997 was a lot more revolutionary than it would be in 2010. Now, everybody runs a version of the spread. In 1997, approximately zero Big Ten teams ran such an offense. For years (up until his retirement, in fact), Tiller was cited as the reason that the Big Ten's offensive statistics and approach changed. Tiller began passing on first down and frequently "using the pass to set up the pass." We all loved it, of course, because it completely baffled Big Ten defenses (remember, that 1997 team was coming off a 3-8 1996 and didn't even really have the personnel for such an offense) and allowed the Boilers to race to a 9-win season. It was amazing.

Before long, more offenses in the Big Ten opened it up, as did many offenses around the country at that time. Just prior to that, what kinds of teams won national titles in college football? Teams like Nebraska, running the effing OPTION. Now what kinds of teams win it? Teams like Florida and Alabama and USC. Sure, they're not all overly pass-happy teams, but the threat of their passing attack is one of the keys to making them successful. Nebraska used to win titles with quarterbacks who had no business even being referred to as quarterbacks.

Whereas winning Super Bowls at the NFL level used to be done with running game and crushing defense, the St. Louis Rams of '99-'01 showed that you could be very successful (and win a Super Bowl) by passing the sh-t out of the ball and playing defense once in a while. The Rams did what nobody had ever been able to do -- outscore everyone.

So the question I ask you is this: Did Joe Tiller play some significant role in changing the way the game is played? Clearly, I'm not silly enough to think he was the cause, but is it fair to say that what he brought to the Big Ten helped make the pass-happy, spread approach more mainstream?

Well, the 29th-best rushing team in the NFL is playing against Joe Tiller's first big recruit and the man who ran his offense better than anyone.

Colts Week 1

I know, it's not Brees v. Manning, it's two teams playing eachother. But, it is two high-powered offenses squaring off with two of the best signal-callers in the game at the helm for each team.

Tonight, actually, this afternoon, Faith Hill and the NFL broadcasting team roll into Indianapolis for a ridiculous carnival of events not related to football...as well as the NFL season opener.

I'll be honest, I like Peyton Manning. But at one point, I would have left my wife and started an alternative lifestyle with Drew Brees. Now that I have a kid and he's moved to the South it just won't work. As a result, I'm a lot more level-headed since I'm not blinded by my man-crush.

I'll be going with the home team to pick up a victory this evening. I'm picking the Colts to win by forcing the Saints into an arms race that they can't win...Colts 37 Saints 28

I look for the undersized & young Colts defense to play better than most think it can, especially down the stretch. Last thing, before the NFL gets into full-swing, the Patriots and Belichick can suck it. I think they've made a few deals with the devil (i.e. Randy Moss) that will end up biting them in the arse before the season's up. I still think that Brady might be the best overall quarterback in the league, but chemistry is still important. Hiring a bunch of mercenaries doesn't always bring you a championship- just ask the Yankees. (oh no he di-int)