Superbowl Week Fun

It is finally Superbowl week, and since the Colts are out and the Pats are still in, I figured we could celebrate this week in sports by focusing on Peyton Manning and completely ignoring Tom Brady. Sound good? Awesome.

My idea is to go through Peyton's Top 10 commercials. We are going to review the career of our favorite actor/QB and I am going to list my favorite commercials. Today, we are going to start with some honorable mentions.

Honorable Mention: The DSRL Press Conference.

Good stuff all around, but it doesn't make the top 10 because I hold this ad completely responsible for the Colts loss to San Diego. We were cruising until this spot came on, then we fell apart. Meanwhile, Eli Manning was playing at an insanely high level and led his team to the SB. In this commercial, Eli beats Peyton in the DSRL. Coincidence? I think not.

Honorable Mention: Sony HDTV

This commercial is weird. Peyton is walking around and inserting himself into every area of the Sony TV process. Honestly, this makes me think Peyton needs psychological help. I have more questions than answers about this commercial, and I'm not any more inclined to by a Sony HDTV than before. How far did Peyton walk to watch TV with those guys? Isn't their reaction a bit odd? What exactly would you do if Peyton just walked in your living room and sat down on your couch? Crazy. Top 10 starts tomorrow.

How to Bounce Back

If you are a Colts fan, you probably still have a bit of a bitter taste in your mouth this morning after the game last night. I have pretty much decided to watch anything but sports TV this week because I don't want to see a single highlight of the game. A bit extreme? Perhaps.

Toward the end of the day yesterday, I began thinking about how the Colts could respond to this loss next year. We still have a good team, and other teams like the Pats and Chargers are unlikely to get any better, and could actually get worse as their players continue to age. Basically, I was wondering how our team could bounce back.

That got me to wondering about how people can respond to life's most pressing challenges. Football, of course, is fairly unimportant compared to difficult situations and tragic circumstances that we all go through at different points in our lives....so how can we bounce back from the truly disappointing times?

Jeremiah was a prophet in the Bible who went through some difficult times. You can read the book named after him to get his story, and he is also credited with writing the book of Lamentations. He was a prophet during the time when Israel was invaded and destroyed by a foreign army; he saw his beloved city, Jerusalem, completely destroyed and he himself was carted away into exile in a foreign land. This was humiliating for the people of Israel, and Jeremiah spends the book of Lamentations complaining and weeping about the tragedy he had seen.

How did he ultimately respond? It is fascinating to hear his words in Lam. 3:22-23

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Did you catch that? Read the book of Lamentations to that point and you will see Jeremiah's point of view and hear the extent of his sorrow. Despite all of that, he still responds to God with praise and TRUST. He affirms the goodness and love of God, saying they are new every morning. Our God is a God of great faithfulness, and he is faithful to us even when no one is faithful to Him.

When we go through difficult situations, we know we can still trust God because he is full of love and compassion. If you choose to respond to tragedy or adversity in this way, you will be greatly benefited by it. So don't worry about the Colts, they will be fine! And if you are like me, remember, only about five weeks until spring training!

Yuck

Colts lose in their last game in the Dome.....enough said. I feel sick. In other news, baseball season starts in less than 3 months!

I told you so...

The Patriots just punched their ticket to the AFC Championship, beating the Jags 31-20. That officially means that tomorrow will be the final game for the RCA Dome. Brady was impressive, Maroney was impressive, the O-line was impressive, and honestly, the Jags didn't play poorly...they just aren't nearly as good as the Pats.

Now we have to keep our end of the bargain to set up the apocalyptic AFC title game in Foxboro. We can beat these guys, we just have to take care of business tomorrow first.

The Playoffs are Here!!

This is an exciting time in Indianapolis as yet another Colts playoff season begins. The Colts are coming off their 2006 Superbowl victory as one of the few teams that actually improved their record following a title. The Colts 13-3 record earned them a first round bye and now a shot at revenge against one of the teams that beat them in the regular season.

The Chargers beat us by two points, despite our team playing the team without Marvin Harrison, Dallas Clark, Anthony Gonzalez, Tony Ugoh, and losing Dwight Freeney during the game. The Colts also gave up TWO returns for TDs, Peyton threw SIX INTs, AND Adam Vinateri missed a 29 yd FG at the end of the game.

That's right, those are the breaks the Chargers got in order to beat us by only two at their home stadium. I think we can handle them at home. Let the Colts AFC revenge tour begin! By the way, this will probably be the RCA Dome's last game, so I think everyone will want to send the old gal out on a good note.

My prediciton: Colts 38 Chargers 16

---> And by the way, I just don't think the Jags have what it takes to beat the Patriots...they lose to us twice, but everyone thinks they will beat the Pats? I don't think so. The Patriots thrashing of the Jags should set up a rematch in the AFC Championship next week in Foxboro between the Colts and Pats.

AFC Championship and Rocky IV

Some of you may be wondering what these two ideas have in common. How can a football game remind you of a Rocky movie? I'll tell you how!

I was fortunate enough to be at the RCA Dome for the AFC Championship game between the Colts and the Patriots. I'm telling you, it was intense!! The crowd was sooo loud that it actually caused physical pain, and the day after I was sick and bowled over in pain.

It was worth every single second!

However, this game didn't exactly go the way I expected it to go, and I doubt any Colts fan wanted it to be this stressful anyway. At least we won!

Back to Rocky IV. If you have watched the series, then you know this movie as the one where Rocky faces the giant Russian, Ivan Drago. He ends up beating the guy and ending the Cold War in the process. "If I's can change...and you's can change..maybe we ALL's can change!!" Legitmate chill moments throughout. During the entire game I felt like the announcers and the trainers for the fight. Let me explain.

In Rocky IV, the end fight didn't start well for our hero. Rocky was getting the stuffing kicked out of him by this massive Russian boxer. The Colts started in a very similar way. We were down 21-3 in the second quarter after a back-breaking interception return for a TD by the Patriots. We were getting killed! There was a woman in the section in front of me who started crying when this happened. She just kept moaning, "Not again..not again!! Please, not again!" Maybe I just imagined her, because I'm pretty sure I was the one weeping and wailing. In any event, just like Rocky, we were getting drilled. We go into the half down 21-6 and things aren't looking so great.

Its a good thing the story doesn't end there. The Rocky-Drago fight was pretty one-sided, but then Rocky started coming back! He had a good round and his trainers were reminding him, "He's just a man! He's not a machine, he's just a man!" At the same time, Drago was sitting in his corner stunned that Rocky was still breathing after the beating he had received. He muttered to his trainers, "He's not human! He's like a piece of iron!"

This is how I imagined the game going. I bet you anything Tony Dungy was in the locker room at halftime telling his team, "They are just men!! They aren't machines...and we can beat them!!" Then the Colts get the ball first in the second half...and we score a touchdown!! This is when I imagined Tom Brady muttering to himself on the sideline, "They are not human! They are like a piece of iron!" It was making me giddy just thinking about it. After that, the Colts defense made a stand and we got the ball back again. Peyton took our team right back down the field again and we scored another touchdown, and then we TIED THE GAME on a two-point conversion. "They are just men!!"

So now the game is tied, 21-21. The Patriots, just like Drago, didn't just roll over after the comeback. In fact, they struck back hard. Drago kept destroying Rocky with huge punches, and the Patriots came back and took the lead with another TD, making it 28-21. The Colts weren't done though, we had proven they were just men, now it was time to hit them back. We scored another TD, our third in a row, to tie the game again at 28-28. This is the part in the fight where Rocky gets on a roll and gets gives Drago a cut above his eye. The announcers scream, "The Russian is bleeding!" After the Colts tied the game again, I was in full Rocky mode now, I think I actually screamed, "The Russians are bleeding!!" We were on a roll, and the game was far from over.

Fast forward to the end of the fight and the end of the game. Rocky is going into the last round needing to knock out Drago, who had never been knocked out, to win the fight. The Colts need to score to force at least overtime, and a TD would come close to locking things up for us.

It's do or die time right now. (Cue "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor)

Rocky comes out swinging and starts making progress. He lands huge punches to the head, devastating shots to Drago's sides, breaking him down piece by piece. Then he lands a huge roundhouse that almost takes the Russian to the ground. The announcers scream, "He's chopping the Russian down!!!" The Colts are in the same position. Peyton has the ball with just over two minutes left in the game, and he has a long field in front of him. Peyton goes to work on the Pats defense, taking shots at them, wearing them down. Then he completes a long pass that rocks the Patriots and gets the crowd really going. "The Russian is bleeding!" Finally after a one minute drive, Joe Addai punches the ball in for a TD and we all just go NUTS. "We're chopping the Patriots down!!" That touchdown was the shot that rocked our opponent, but there was still time left.

Rocky didn't give up, and neither did our Colts. Rocky landed a huge punch that put Drago on the ground, and the Colts moment of truth came when Marlin Jackson intercepted Tom Brady. Both events sent the crowd into a delirium. All that remained was the countdown.

Rocky waited as the referee counted to ten and Drago couldn't get to his feet, and Peyton came out and took a knee, icing the game!

IT WAS AMAZING!! Rocky wins in the last round, and Peyton and the Colts knock out the Patriots to go to the Superbowl.

The lesson to learn from this? I live in my own little universe, and I am sure I appear insane to the outside observor, but I bet at least one of you was thinking the same thing during this game. Anyone?