It has to be the Saints

Unlike Wojo, I'm fully declared for this game. I've decided which delicious team colored cupcake from Crumbs I will eat after I down 2-3 large pulled pork sandwiches. It's the Saints. It has to be.

• First: New Orleans, Katrina, destruction, Superdome as hell, revitalization, rallying around the team, epic season. No decent human doesn't appreciate this angle, even Colts fans.
• Second, this is a franchise that until this year had won two playoff games total. This fan base has suffered for a long time. It'd be nice to see them win one.
• Most importantly: what the Colts did in the Curtis Painter game was not okay. I'm a Jets fan, and I was cheering for the Colts that day - I wanted to see perfection, just to be able to say I saw it happen. I love Manning for the same reasons Wojo does. I'd have been fine with a Jets win, but the way they got it was repulsive. The goal of football is to win games, particularly if there is something to compete for, like, perhaps, being the greatest of all time. If the Colts win, it will somehow justify their strategy to people - "their goal was to win the Super Bowl, and they did." But they didn't need to do that to win the Super Bowl. Manning has never missed a game and never takes big hits. They could have rested hurt players, but played to win. They didn't. So I don't want to see them win the Super Bowl and somehow think Jim Caldwell has been vindicated in any way.

I'm not exactly sure why the Colts decision makes me so angry. I think its this: our attachment to sports is an emotional one. We have goals and hopes for the teams we follow and enjoy. We want teams to care in the same way we do, or else we feel like chumps - why should we care if the people attempting to make the history don't? The Colts resting their starters made it clear that they and their fans did not have the same goals. The Colts said "This is a business; we have no need to attempt to be the best ever, just to achieve our general goal. We will be risk averse in doing so." It felt cold. (That blank look on Jim Caldwell's face did not help. Neither did the anguished look on the faces of the players.) It made me feel bad for caring that a team was approaching 19-0. The Colts told me, in so many words, that I was a sucker, and that all the fans filling their stadiums were suckers.

So scream (full bellied and drunkenly) with me: "Who dat?! Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?!"