Live and Let Go

In this ever changing world in which we’re livin’…

Tony Dungy gets the job done in big games.

The Colts have a Championship-caliber defense that hits hard dictates the pace of the game.

Prince is safe and subdued enough for the FCC to send him into 90 million homes on live television.

Dungy and the Colts’ God has overtaken Lovie Smith and the Bears’ God in a bizarre metaphysical test of strength highlighted by torrential rains of biblical proportions- I always knew Phil Simms was a sign of the apocalypse.

And Peyton Manning won the Super Bowl.

I know we’ve all thought through already, but will it ever fully sink in? No more Dan Marino comparisons, no more choking jokes, no more “best player never to win the big game,” no more statistical throne of lies, and at least a little bit less Peyton Manning Face.

A few weeks ago, this fate seemed unfathomable. The Colts seemed less likely to win the title than they had for four or five years, since the defense was in shambles and the offense had less star power heading into the playoffs. The Colts failed to secure even a first round playoff bye, having to go through a Kansas City team who some saw as a lively underdog. Without Edge James or any semblance of a run defense, the Colts lacked everything necessary to win in the playoffs.

But in a way, this season was the ultimate anti-Colts season, using opposite behaviors to reverse their previously terrible karma. Before 2006, the Colts built their reputation through regular season invincibility. Whether through logic-defying statistics and point scoring, or through making a run at the ‘Phins undefeated crown, Indy didn’t surprise anyone on the way to the Super Bowl, and therefore never really even got close. The team always peaked way too early, looking unbeatable in November, then finding a way to fall apart before too long. Manning’s entire reputation revolved around postseason failure to the point that he was more famous for playoff letdowns than for his numerous regular season successes, or even his Pro Bowl successes (alright, that’s a low blow).

This year, the Colts actually snuck up on some teams. Bob Sanders got hurt just in time to allow everyone to underestimate their ability to stop anyone, then came back just in time to give an otherwise soft unit some teeth. The offense looked one-dimensional enough to be stopped through most of the regular season, then Joseph Addai emerged as a legitimate threat alongside Dominic Rhodes to force other teams to respect the run and carry them when Manning experienced his inevitable postseason wobbling. One could even go so far as to say that the Colts left something on the table at Houston or at Tennessee, then executed flawlessly in the playoffs, late in games, when they needed it most.

Altogether, it is not as if the Colts who gave us so many laughs and provoked so much smugness over the last few years actually won the Super Bowl. A different team, lacking all of those identifying characteristics, emerged from the wreckage of the Vanderjagt-Steelers game. It is not just that this team succeeded where those others had failed, but that the ways in which they succeeded in exactly the places that the other teams’ failed. The essence of the Colts did not change when they won the Super Bowl or when they beat the Patriots, but when they feel into restraint, timing, and luck.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself to avoid eating my own face at the thought of Peyton Manning as a Super Bowl Champion. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Peyton is very popular and talented, and I understand why so many people like him. The problem is that I have intensely hated him from day one. I hated him playing for the back-stabbing pig Phil Fulmer at Tennessee. When he got to the NFL, he was picked by a team I never liked, and proceeded to fit entirely too well into the league’s marketing scheme. His corn-fed grin, over-the-top drawl, and excessive willingness toward over-exposure never sat well with me, and every new syrupy Sportscenter feature or stupidly self-effacing commercial only made the problem worse. Adding his petulant and overrated brother to the mix to create the networks’ fantasy “dynasty” further exacerbated the problem. To put it another way, I kept trying to figure out a way to get Peyton Manning on a team coached by Mike Krzyzewski, just to see if any program directors would die of epileptic seizures.

The idea of Manning winning a title was entirely depressing to me. I had too much fun at his expense to ever let him redeem himself. Moreover, it would test my own logic, providing proof against the hypothesis that Manning was totally incapable of winning in the clutch- a theory to which I very willingly subscribed. It would be one thing if I only had to surrender this amusement, but having to do so at the same time that someone I legitimately hate was winning a Super Bowl and getting even more attention seemed unreal.

After the AFC title game, I refused to talk about the game because I wanted to avoid praising him or the team, not because I loved the Patriots. I went so far as to turn off all NFL coverage for the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl- everything from Pardon the Interruption to the homepages of any major sports websites. I was serious, too- I wore headphones to the gym so as not to overhear any discussion about Tank Johnson, African-American coaches, Rex Grossman, and most of all, Peyton Manning. If the over-exposure was what made me dislike him so much, I figured that I might be able to fix the problem by ignoring him altogether. The closest thing to football that I saw was Bill Simmons’ Super Bowl week series, which, luckily, had almost nothing to do with sports whatsoever.

Except for the rain, the game went pretty much as expected. The Colts defense was not bad, though it was nowhere near as great as Rex Grossman’s stunning ineptitude. Manning was solid, made some mistakes, audibled like a coked-out schizophrenic, and relied heavily on the ground game, just like he has throughout the playoffs, winning the MVP because it cannot go to a running back tandem. Despite an inferior regular season record, the team the Colts fielded in the postseason was better than the opposition, mimicking another recent champion, the St. Louis Cardinals. Then, the moment came when the Colts had to take the podium to receive the Lombardi Trophy. At this point, shouldn’t I have been aggravated and incensed?

Strangely, no. The networks showed some discretion in terms of overdoing the Manning Family Cam, keeping Archie and Eli as far from Super Bowl coverage as they deserve to be (By the way, I don’t find it terribly surprising that a family with men named Archie, Peyton, Eli, and Cooper is southern and white. Maybe it’s just me). I found myself smiling for Tony Dungy- never one of my favorites- just because he looked so happy, relieved, and vindicated to finally win a Super Bowl after suffering blow upon blow to his reputation because his quarterback needed an Ambien to make it through a playoff game. Even Peyton looked mildly adorable when he held up the trophy. The same mechanical and unathletic movements that annoy me in games seemed funnier out of context. Maybe he finally felt relieved and let his guard down. Maybe my heart grew three sizes that day. In any case, just when I was expecting to give in and cry, I found a new sense of perspective that made the whole conundrum tolerable.

Plus, Super Bowl winners always suffer a huge letdown the next year, so at least we have that to anticipate.