Super Bowl rooting interests

Neither Migs nor I have a rooting stake in this Super Bowl in the conventional way. Indianapolis and New Orleans aren't our teams, they're not rivals of our teams, neither one stole a notable player or coach from our teams ... they just have no connection that I can see. (Although it's possible Migs will point out something I missed in his follow-up.) Sure, New Orleans was in the NFC West for many years. (Remember when the NFC West actually had only one western team, with St. Louis, Atlanta, Carolina, and New Orleans making up the rest of the division. Wasn't that absurd?) But I don't think San Francisco and New Orleans had any real intra-division rivalry then, and certainly none has survived today.

So who do I root for? I guess it's time for bullet-points. (Wizard-points?)

In favor of the Colts:

• I like Peyton Manning. I like his media personality: goofy, but not in a Chad Ochocinco way. More understated, but still endearingly weird. I'm thinking of him berating children and hitting them with footballs, or playing ping-pong with Justin Timberlake, or crashing your football party. (I can't seem to put together the right search to find that last one, but you know what I'm talking about.) I also like Peyton Manning as a football player. First, his throws are sort of unintimidating. They wobble a lot. He doesn't really throw that beautiful spiral ball that most NFL quarterbacks seem to throw. Second, his movement in the pocket is remarkable. I remain confident that, with a little training, I could beat him in a foot race, yet he never gets hit. His knowledge of where pressure is coming from, his little Manning Shoulder Turn (TM), his quick release, and a thousand other little things add up to almost never taking big hits (what percentage of his sacks are him laying down underneath the charging lineman who came free? Has to be huge, right?) and never getting the ball stripped, and it's beautiful to watch.


• I want Tom Brady's possible legacy of being the best QB of his generation dead and buried. If Peyton wins this Super Bowl, and especially if he wins it in either heroic or blowout fashion, his legacy will be significantly burnished, especially considering that Tom Brady's has been overseeing the downfall of Rome over the last two years. (Not that it's his fault, by any means. He didn't even play in one of those two years. But twenty years from now, our memories will be hazier and we'll remember that he was still the quarterback of the Patriots while they fell apart.) It's nothing personal against Tom Brady, really. It's just that I hate the guy.


• Pierre Garcon, Haitian-American. Also, his college football team was the Purple Raiders.


• I think it would be funny to watch how the media deals with the coaching staff of the Colts. Super Bowl-winning coaches are supposed to be revered, but this is a unique situation on the offensive side because of Peyton Manning. Tom Moore gets no credit for being the offensive coordinator on this team, as if calling plays is all a coordinator does. His game-planning, overseeing of the offensive staff, and shaping the scheme in which Manning has had so much success all fall by the wayside because, you know, Peyton makes the play calls. Then, team-wide, Jim Caldwell's Art Shell-like demeanor on the sidelines has made him an easy target for people like Bill Simmons. On top of that, you have his refusal to go for the 19-0 season still lingering in people's minds. The potential cognitive dissonance of "Jim Caldwell, Super Bowl-winning head coach" is too much to pass up.


• I like the resolute way the Colts have refused to buy into "running and defense win in the playoffs" meme. Their defense isn't terrible or anything, but it's not exactly the 2000 Ravens, either. And their run game is decidedly mediocre. They win on the backs of Manning, Wayne, and Clark. I'm for this. (Now, this means that I also was, in a certain way, for the Patriots against the Giants a few years ago, too. That's ok. I can own that contradiction.)

Now, on the Saints side of things:

• I like Drew Brees. (Yes, apparently quarterbacks matter to me a lot.) I totally buy into the awesomeness of his pregame pump-up-the-team huddles. I feel for him over the whole drama with his mom. I like that he's as good as he is despite having something less than the prototypical quarterback's body. (Not that he's JaMarcus Russell or Doug Flutie or anything. But he is pretty short.)


• I like Reggie Bush. I don't mind that he took a lot of money to play at USC. (In fact, I encourage the top players to do this. You're the ones making millions for the schools. Get yours.) Further, he gives me an excuse to continue my run of posting gratuitous photos in my posts.
  
  
  Badonk
  
  Most importantly, though, I'd like for him to win a Super Bowl so that maybe people will stop caring, four years in to his career, whether he's a "bust" or merely "overdrafted". He is what he is, and he's still plenty young enough (did you know he's only 24?) to be even a little more than that. If the Saints can win a Super Bowl with him as a significant contributing player, then maybe we can quit talking about how they should have drafted D'Brickashaw Ferguson instead.


• I'm burying the lede here, but: New Orleans. I'm not even going to go into it, because it's all been written. Over and over and over. But suffice it to say that I'd be much happier for the city and fans of New Orleans than for the city and fans of Indianapolis.

I am, predictably, unable to come to a conclusion on this. I'd advise the players, coaches, and fan bases of both teams that I'm in a precarious state here. Any slight move by either one of them could win me over or knock me off their bandwagon. If a Saint gets into a domestic dispute tonight, I'd probably pull for the Colts. If it's revealed that Reggie Bush is secretly a huge Waylon Jennings fan, I'd probably pull for the Saints. I'm in your hands, guys.