Super Bowl thoughts

Congratulations to the Indianapolis Colts. In sloppy, rainy weather the Colts beat the Bears 29 to 17. The final score does not do justice to the level of domination by the Colts. After midway through the first quarter there was never a point in the game where the Bears seemed to be in control.

Peyton Manning was named MVP of the game and some (myself included) said running back Dominick Rhodes deserved strong consideration. However, after thinking about that game it is obvious to me that the Colts offensive line is most deserving of the recognition. It was clear by the halftime break that the Colts were wearing down the vaunted Bears defense.

Hopefully, we've heard the last of the term "first black coach." Tony Dungy is a football coach. If people need to put an adjective before the word coach, I would recommend good, or great or self-controlled or many other superlatives before choosing to identify him by his skin color. His race should not be the primary adjective that comes to mind. Coach Dungy himself made a point of saying he preferred to be considered a "Christian coach." With a 114-62 won/loss record, Dungy has the highest winning percentage (.648) of any active NFL football coach. Define him by his success not his race. Don't get me wrong, the fact that Dungy and his counterpart with the Bears, Lovie Smith, were the first two African-American coaches to reach the Super Bowl was noteworthy, but all the media droned on excessively in the week leading up to the game to the exclusion of discussing matters actually relevant to the game.

In the week leading up to the Super Bowl sports commentators pondered how a winning or losing this one game would affect Peyton Manning's reputation. Hogwash! If the Colts defense had played poorly and the team lost would that change how good a quarterback Manning is? Trent Dilfer is a journeyman quarterback who happened to ride along when the Baltimore Ravens defense and running game won a championship. A Colts' loss yesterday would not have changed my perception of Manning just as the Ravens' victory a few years ago didn't change my impression of Dilfer. Quarterbacks get too much credit for teams success and too much blame for team failure.

Yesterday's game does continue the trend of AFC dominance over the NFC. This is the second year in a row where the NFC's top seeded playoff team got beat by a lower rated AFC team. The AFC has won 8 of the last 10 Super Bowls.

Lastly and most importantly, pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in Winter Haven in 10 days. That leads to today's quote of the day (H/T Tribe Report):

“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

-Rogers Hornsby