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If I Gotta, I Gotta

Habits are hard to break. I'm my own blogging boss and know no form of sportswriting is more useless and stupid than predictions. Yet a voice inside tells me only a horseshit scribe wouldn't make picks for the two NFL conference championship games, especially if the home team is in one of them. So here goes.

One's easy. Doesn't mean I'll be right, but my forecast is a clear vision. In the JV, er, NFC championship, I like the Saints over the Bears. New Orleans' offense has the best mixture of power and explosiveness of the four teams remaining. The Saints' most grievious weakness, a haphazard defense with a penchant for surrendering 70-yard gains will benefit from the Bears' distrust of their own quarterback, Rex Grossman. Teams with a "don't lose it" offensive game plan usually do just that.

Now for the hard one. Hold the Patriots and Colts up to any light you find, and they seem as equal as can be. Identical regular season records. Each team coming off a road playoff win where its Hall of Fame quarterback didn't play too well. Both nothing if not familiar with their foe to the point of actual boredom.

This will be the 7th meeting between the Colts and Pats in the past four seasons, seasons in which they've been the most successful regular season teams in the league (Indy 39-15, New England 40-14). As you may have heard, however, the Patriots have won two Super Bowls in that period and the Colts none. They're 0-2 against the Pats in the playoffs.

These facts dominate local news in these parts to the point where even the most devout Pats' fan might develop a sneaking hope the Colts win Sunday. Those who cite them ignore a basic fact of athletic human nature. In Vegas, the dice have no memory. In the NFL, players don't have much more.

Here is a brief summary of the last six meetings between the Colts and Patriots. The point is not to find a pattern, but to note that none exists.

2003 regular season at Indy: Patriots 38-Colts 33. As thrilling as can be imagined. A last second goal line stand is the most delightful of all football outcomes.
2003 AFC title game at Foxboro: Patriots 24-Colts 14. New England grabbed early double-digit lead and controlled game throughout. This is the most typical postseason game description of all.
2004 regular season opener at Foxboro: Patriots 27-Colts 24. Another thriller, in which the Colts squandered their chances with a series of dismal blunders. Eerily reminiscent of last week's Pats-Chargers' game, right down to the missed field goal on its final play.
2004 divisional playoff game at Foxboro: Patriots 20-Colts 3. Worst Indy effort of the bunch. Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy showed the white feather by punting on 4th and 1 from inside Pats' territory in the third quarter, and the Colts promptly collapsed. In fairness, this was also best Pats team of the bunch, too.
2005 regular season at Foxboro: Colts 40-Pats 20. Indy opened up a tall, frosty can of whupass from start to finish.
2006 regular season at Foxboro: Colts 27-Pats 20. Indianapolis scored on first three possessions and New England never caught up. 2003 AFC title game in reverse.

Go ahead. Tell me how those games help predict Sunday's outcome. They don't. They can't. The Colts and Pats touched all the possible bases in those six tilts. Analysis leads to one conclusion. This baby is most likely to come down to the football's funny bounces. That being the case, the Patriots are the only possible winner to to predict.

There's never been a team that's done more with funny bounces than the Pats. When the going gets weird, they get going at a pace no foe can match. Save the hate email deranged New England fans. I'm not discussing luck, which exists in every game. Winning off the bounces, or the tuck rule is the ability to make luck work for you, one of the supreme skills of any champion in any sport.

I was tempted to conclude this essay by saying Lady Luck throws herself at Tom Brady just as all the other ladies do, but I think there's something more to the Patriot's QBs knack for prospering when logic says he shouldn't. Let's not waste time. The Colts and Pats are potential champions because of their quarterbacks, period. Drop anybody else into those roles, and New England is a 9-7 marginal playoff squad. The Colts would've gone 5-11, tops.

As individual talents, there is nothing, repeat nothing to choose between Brady and Manning. It's our privilege to watch both. Put Manning on the 2004 Pats, and he'd have that Super Bowl ring. Put Brady on the 2004 Colts, and he would've thrown 49 touchdown passes that season.

So why is Fate Brady's best girl while she won't return Manning's phone calls? I've been lucky enough to watch each man's career from a very good seat, and I think it comes down to their respective lives.

When one sees Brady play football, one sees a man who's living the dream., which when you think about it is exactly what Tom's life has been.

When one sees Manning play, one sees a man raised from childhood for the terrible responsibility of inheriting and running the family business, which when you think about it is exactly what Peyton's life has been.

To the Colts and Pats, football's not just a game, nor it should it be. It's their lives, their destiny. But the team's whose biggest star can come closest to PRETENDING it's just a game has, in my opinion, an edge worth betting on.

Pats 28-Colts 24.

posted by Michael Gee @ 10:47 AM