The Showdown of Showdowns

Hi there, me again. I wanted to get this up Tuesday or Wednesday, but my week has been a tad insane. So forgive me for waiting so long to talk about the Game of the Century: Pats vs Colts. Good vs Evil. Awesome vs Awesome. The two best coaches, the two best quarterbacks, and the two best teams in the league square off in Indy this Sunday at 1:15pm. Short of hell freezing over or a major earthquake, I can't think of anything that will keep me away from the TV Sunday afternoon. It's the first time in history two undefeated teams have met this late in the year. And in my 20+ years watching football, I can't think of a time when two teams were clearly this much better than everybody else. How can this game possibly live up the hype of The Biggest Game in Regular Season history?

That's the best part: it WILL live up to the hype. Surpass it even. There's so many things working in favor of this matchup, we've got a better chance of Brittney Spears winning Parent of the Year than of this game being a stinker. The biggest reason? BOTH teams feels slighted. One of the things I'll never understand is how grown men getting paid obscene amounts of money to play a kid's game need extra motivation from media or fans "doubting" them. The money and joy apparently just aren't enough, so they get their fire from talking heads or newspapers or fan blogs saying they're not good enough.

This has already been pointed out to you, I'm sure, but my favorite story line so far is how the Patriots are ticked off because they were CORRECTLY slighted: they were caught cheating. People called them cheaters. They ARE cheaters. And yet the Pats feel this is an injustice. "How DARE you call us cheaters when we were caught cheating!" I don't know how Bill Belichek has managed to use this as a rallying point, but boy has he! I have never seen a team this mad for this long. In the NBA you'll see Kobe or Gilbert Arenas go off on a team that he feels disrespected him, but it really only lasts for that one game. The Patriots have been playing with a level of anger, hatred, and revenge for 8 straight weeks that even Rambo couldn't top. They CANNOT score enough points or beat a team bad enough. Most teams get up 3 or 4 TD's and either put it in cruise control, or the coach goes ultra-conservative. The Pats? They blitz at every chance, and go 4 wide in the 4th quarter up 30. It's just un-freaking-believable that the whole team is buying into this and WANTS to run up the score. They smell blood in the water and not only go for the kill, but seem to enjoy doing it, ripping their opponents apart piece by piece.

Then we have the Colts. How would you like to be the defending Super Bowl champs, undefeated, and be 5 POINT UNDERDOGS AT HOME?!?!?!?!? That point cannot be stressed enough. It just can't. Never in the history of the world has that happened. Indy's done everything right, beat everybody in their path, and are just as undefeated as the Pats, who oh by the way they beat on their way to the Super Bowl last year, and they're still underdogs AT HOME!!!!

In all the hype for this game, one thing I haven't seen talked about is how this has to be a YUGE advantage to Indy. In the biggest NFL regular season game ever, there's zero pressure on the Colts to win. Think about it: If the Pats lose this game there's going to be an avalanche of criticism about how they've played and what kind of team they are, and what a bunch of a**holes the whole lot of them are. People are DYING to pile on the Patriots and be justified in hating them. But if the Colts lose, well hey they lost to the greatest team in history. They'll get another chance in the AFC Championship game. They were 5 point dogs at home. If the Colts can't beat New England, then nobody can. No big whoop.

There's no pressure AND free motivation for Peyton and Dungy and the rest of them.

The best part about all of this is that both teams wouldn't have it any other way. The Pats have been the Goliath/Anti-Christ since game 2, and have responded by outscoring opponents 331-127. For perspective, the 2nd highest scoring team in the league, the Cowboys, have 227. And yes, they've played one more game than just about everybody, but unless the Cowboys score 104 points this week, the Pats are still well ahead. For the Colts, I can't imagine Peyton Manning, who prepares for every game like it's the biggest of his life, needing extra motivation, but he's got it if he wants it. The Colts have followed in Dungy's footsteps as being the quiet, respectful, reserved, business-like team who'll knock you down, and after the whistle blows help you back up. You can't find more of a contrast in styles.

That's another thing that I haven't heard talked about enough: HOW these teams are winning is having a huge effect on how people perceive this game. Other than the Dolphins game, when the Pats led 42-0 at half in the most impressive 30 minutes of football I've ever seen, New England's huge point totals and margins of victory have been coming because they refuse to pull their starters and go conservative. The Cleveland win in week 5 is the only time where New England didn't have at least one 4th quarter touchdown with their starters in with the game well in hand. Look through the box scores- every game but that one they've got a TD mid to late 4th quarter from their starters with at least a 17 point lead. Is it impressive that they're got at least a 17 point lead in the 4th quarter in 7 of 8 games? Sure, but I still think it skews the thinking on the Patriots. Yes they're winning by a lot, but when they're putting up gaudy numbers BECAUSE they're running up the scores and leaving their starters in, which nobody else is doing.

The Colts, on the other hand, have won 5 of 7 games by at least 17 points, and have just one game, the 41-7 week 1 dismantling of the Saints, where you could say they ran up the score. That's it. If the Colts had continued to pile it on late in games to rack up points and stats, would their wins be more impressive? Maybe.

So who wins Sunday? Honestly, I have no idea. I could see New England winning by 40, gunning for another TD late in the 4th, and Belichek responding in the postgame with something like "Running up the score? If the Colts had stopped us, scored, recovered the onside kick, and then converted a 28 point touchdown, they would have been within 14 points of us. We weren't running up the score." I could also see the Colts cooly and calmly controlling the clock with Joseph Addai and Kenton Keith, Manning picking apart the Pats secondary, and the D being the first and only team to give the Patriots problems, and winning a 24-21 game. The only thing that would shock me would be the Colts blowing out New England, but then again, perhaps that shows I'm underestimating the Colts too. So far, nobody's been able to run a balanced offense against New England for the entire game. The Pats have played from behind for a grand total of about 4 minutes all season, which came in the third quarter of the Dallas game. Other than that New England's been ahead early and often, being able to dictate what they want to do offensively, and being able to "pin their ears back" on defense because they know their opponents have to throw. That's part of why the Vikes D was so good in 1998 because the other team was always playing from behind so they didn't have to worry about the run.

Am I grasping at straws here? Trying to make this matchup seem closer than it is? Decide for yourself. Am I cheering for the Colts? Yes. Am I cheering for the Greatest Regular Season Game in NFL History to be The Greatest Regular Season Game in NFL History? Yes again. The best part is, I think we'll get it.