Notes On The NFL Season

Here are a few things I'll note about the recent NFL season, which will end Sunday with the Super Bowl.
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The Indianapolis Colts, my hometown team, will play the New Orleans Saints Sunday evening in Miami. They are favored by 5 points as of the odds posted this morning.

After the Colts beat the New York Jets 30-17 in the AFC championship game, I didn't hear or read much complaining around here about their 27-12 loss to the Jets on Dec. 17, which ended their chances for an undefeated season.

But if they had lost in the playoffs, the noise would've been loud and long.
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I knew that Peyton Manning, the Colts' quarterback, was very, very good. But this year I realized that he is brilliant.

The Colts have a terrible running game and new receivers. But they have a 16-2 record because of his efforts.

He definitely deserved the MVP award, which ought to be called Player Of The Year.
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Outside the Indianapolis area, it seems the rest of the world will be cheering for the Saints to win because they seem to have broken through to excellence after many seasons of mediocrity.

Now some people cheer for a team. I wonder how many cheer against it. Colts fans cheer against the New England Patriots because of the recent history between the two teams.

Now I respect the Patriots' performance during the 2000s, so I don't cheer against them.

But I'm no better in some ways. I cheer against the Dallas Cowboys. It goes back to the 1970s, when they were called "America's Team" and the authoritarian Tom Landry was coaching them and the authoritarian Roger Staubach was their quarterback.
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If I had credentials for Media Day, I would've talked with the offensive linemen of both teams. They rarely get attention, unless they let a quarterback get sacked.

They also are said to be, as a group, the most thoughtful, if not smartest, members of their teams.

And by the way ... offensive tackle is a misnomer. They don't tackle anyone.
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The Who will be playing at halftime. I'm no nationalist, but I'd rather see an American band play, because our football is a sport usually confined to the United States. What the English call football, Americans call soccer.
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I hope Brett Favre retires and takes his ego with him.

Here's how he ended his last three seasons:

• In 2010, as a quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings, he threw an interception against the Saints near the end of regulation in the NFC title game;
• In 2009, as a quarterback for the Jets, he threw an interception in the fourth quarter of the last game of the regular season with the playoffs on the line for the team;
• In 2008, as a quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, he threwan interception in overtime against the New York Giants in the NFC title game.

Combine those incidents with his to-play-or-not-to-play Hamlet-like attitude about the end of his career. I won't go into the details now; check the Internet for them. But I believe they're connected by his egotism.
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One quarterback who is retiring is Kurt Warner, who last played for the Arizona Cardinals.

I found it interesting that he wore number 13 on his jersey. He's a devout Christian, and 13 is an unlucky number in Western civilization because that was the number of men at the Last Supper.
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I'll be watching the Super Bowl and will cheer for the Colts. I could post about it, but I'll see.
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Here are the scores of three games during the last weekend of the regular season:

• Dallas 24, Philadelphia Eagles 7;
• Jets, 37, Cincinnati Bengals 7;
• Packers 33, Cardinals 7.

By coincidence, these six teams played each other again during the first week of the playoffs. The scores were:

• Jets 24, Bengals 14;
• Cowboys 34, Eagles 14;
• Cardinals 51, Packers 45 (in overtime).