This is a Super Bowl like none other for me.
No, not because the game is on CBS and it gives me an opportunity to tell the world that Jim Nantz is not Joe Buck or Al Michaels and should probably just stick to golf. Rather, my team, DA BEARS, is still playing, and is one game away from its second Super Bowl title.
If you have been reading this nonsense that appears on the back page of The Daily Cardinal every Wednesday then you probably expected to be reading about the Bears today. We are still four days away from the game, though, which means you still have over 96 hours of non-stop, mind-numbing Super Bowl coverage left to watch.
So, in the spirit of Devin Hester, I will attempt to make absolutely no sense in this Super Bowl XLI preview. In my completely biased and unprofessional journalistic opinion, here are my top 10 not-so-obvious reasons why the Bears will win on Sunday.
10. Anyone else think it is bad karma to have the most famous colt on the planet die just days before the Colts are playing in the Super Bowl? No, idiot, Peyton Manning is fine. I'm talking about Barbaro, a horse that has been battling for eight months now to overcome a devastating injury suffered at the Preakness last May. Trainers fought for so long to save the colt and they picked this week to give up?
9. The Bears have four Florida Gators on their team in defensive end Alex Brown, quarterback Rex Grossman, safety Todd Johnson and nose tackle Ian Scott. Not only did they just celebrate a national championship, but they did it after Florida was the overwhelming underdog in the big game. Sound familiar?
8. Colts guard Jake Scott and Bears' third-string quarterback Kyle Orton both have the grizzly man beards going. The difference? Scott actually plays and gets seen during games, which means he has no excuse for having a fur coat wrapped around his neck. Orton, meanwhile, is just trying to stay warm on the bench. Of course this game is being played in Miami, so please, just shave for the sake of men everywhere.
7. Indianapolis is closer to the east coast—therefore, the Colts are more like Coasties.
6. Former Badger Jim Sorgi is the backup quarterback of the Colts. We all love the guy, but in the event Manning goes down Sunday, Indianapolis might trade for Orton in the middle of the game—with an electric shaver as a signing bonus.
5. As reported in The New York Times on Monday, only 53 percent of the 15 highest rated Super Bowl quarterbacks won the game. Manning's rating is No. 13 on that list. Of the 11 quarterbacks with a lower rating than Grossman, seven of them went on to win the Super Bowl. The quarterback comparisons are overrated and the thing about Grossman is that he could have a rating over 100 or set a career low with a rating below zero. This game will be won on the ground and on defense—where the Bears have the edge.
4. Any other Bears' fans sick of hearing about reporters accusing Grossman of being the worst quarterback ever to start a Super Bowl? OK, this is the Super Bowl so what kind of company are we really talking about here? It's not like he's the worst quarterback ever to start the Humanitarian Bowl. It's the Super Bowl—he must be kind of good.
3. UW men's basketball sophomore forward Marcus Landry is picking the Bears.
""It's about time for the Bears to win something around here so I'll have to go with the Bears,"" Landry said.
2. Alando Tucker, a Lockport, Ill. native and big Bears fan, is going with his hometown team as well.
""I think we are going to pull it off. I think we'll pull it off by a touchdown,"" Tucker said Monday.
Why is Tucker a Bears fan?
""For me it comes from watching classics,"" Tucker said. ""Just watching so many classics, you know, Walter Payton, Mike Ditka as [Da] coach, and now Urlacher in my era. It's tradition, so much tradition. Walter Payton was the Michael Jordan of the Bears and I was a big Michael Jordan basketball fan. So to watch some of those things that he was able to do, I'm carrying that tradition.""
1. Other big Michael Jordan fans include Saturday Night Live's ""Chicago Bears Superfans."" To copy a pick Chris Farley's character made about a Chicago Bulls game in that SNL skit, I'm picking the Bears ""400 to zip,"" but Brian Urlacher ""will be held to under 200 points.""
I now leave the professional Super Bowl coverage to Jim Nantz.
OK jealous Packer fans, send the pro-Manning e-mail to hoge@dailycardinal.com.
