Super Bowl XLI Review

A quick review of Super Bowl XLI:

Pre-Game Show

Can we just accept that all Super Bowl pre-game shows will be a.) 4+ hours in length, and b.) boring?

Some of the highlights (or lowlights) from yesterday's pre-game show:

The Random Celebrity Introduction: This year, it was Cuba Gooding, Jr., who is in the new Eddie Murphy film Norbit. I'm actually looking forward to seeing Norbit, because the Nutty Professor/Klumps series didn't satisfy my insatiable appetite to see Eddie Murphy in a fat suit. (It's been twenty years since Raw, by the way. Twenty years. I can't get over that.)

Boomer/Shannon Fly With the Thunderbirds: How does the United States Air Force celebrate its 60th anniversary? By making Shannon Sharpe the first equine to pull 9 G's. Nicely done!

Stevie Nicks: ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!!! Nothing screams "Super Bowl Sunday" like a mid-afternoon performance by Stevie Nicks.

Bill Cowher Visits the Set: The former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach says that he'd like get into broadcasting. Please don't, Bill. You're a great head coach. Take a year off, get some Huxtable sweaters and wait for the Panthers or Redskins job to open up.

Kickoff Show

Ah, the "kickoff" show, which is completely different from the pre-game show. How is it different? For starters, it has a different corporate sponsor. Secondly, there's no football analysis whatsoever. That's been replaced by Cirque de Soleil. Strangely, I'm okay with it.

Halftime Show

Horrible. There's nothing about a 48-year old, 5'1" man wearing a Carol Brady Collection aqua pantsuit with high heels and a perm that says "football". Nothing. I would've preferred an encore from Cirque de Soleil or Stevie Nicks over this.

Hell, John Madden naked wrestling a badger would've been better than Prince.

The Game

Overall, I wasn't as disappointed in the game as I thought I would be. The rain made things interesting in the first half, with the Colts and Bears combining for 6 turnovers, including 5 fumbles.

Chicago used a 92-yard kick return by Devin Hester and a 4-yard scoring pass from Rex Grossman to Muhsin Muhammed to take a 14-6 lead late in the 1st quarter. After that, the Bears offense went into Peyton Manning-induced hibernation. The Colts held the ball for 21 minutes and 35 seconds between the 2nd and 3rd quarters, where they outscored Chicago 16-3.

Early in the 4th quarter, Rex Grossman tossed a touchdown pass to Indianapolis' Kelvin Hayden, and the game was pretty much over.

Mac's Game Balls

Offense: Peyton Manning, Indianapolis - 25-38, 247 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT isn't very flashy, at least not by Manning's standards. But he was effective, played well despite the driving rain, and made just one bad throw (the 1st quarter INT to Chris Harris).

Defense: Bob Sanders, Indianapolis - Sanders didn't have a 13 tackle game like Chicago LB Lance Briggs. In fact, Sanders only made a pair of tackles in the game. But he did force a fumble on a bone-crushing hit on Cedric Benson and intercepted Bears' QB Rex Grossman. I'm giving him a game ball because the Colts defense improved dramatically once they had Sanders back in the lineup.

Special Teams: Devin Hester, Chicago - When you return the opening kick in the Super Bowl 92 yards for a touchdown, you get a game ball. Indianapolis didn't kick the ball anywhere near him the rest of the way. That's called "respect".

If you want a more in-depth review of yesterday's game, I recommend that you check out today's column by Football Outsider's Doug Farrar over at FOX Sports.com.

Manning the MVP

With no dominating performances, it had to go to Manning. I've read and heard a lot about making Joseph Addai and Dominic Rhodes co-MVPs, but those people are overlooking something: Chicago's run defense hasn't been very good since Tommie Harris and Mike Brown were injured, and Chicago rarely put an 8th guy down in the box to stop the run.

Chicago's primary concern was stopping Manning, and Peyton was content to hand the ball off to Addai/Rhodes, or hit Rhodes (who had 10 receptions, 2 short of an NFL record) on quick dumpoff passes when the defense was retreating into it's "Tampa 2" coverage. This flawed strategy by Chicago made those big gains on the ground possible.

Manning and the Colts were 8-18 on 3rd downs against the 2nd-ranked 3rd down defense in the NFL this year. Indianapolis controlled the clock (Indianapolis ran 80 plays in 38 minutes and 4 seconds), kept their defense on the ground and dramatically altered the Bears gameplan.

Do you really think Lovie Smith wanted to run the ball fewer than 20 times last night? Of course not. The only way Chicago was going to win was pressure Manning (didn't happen) and control the clock with Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson (who was injured in the 1st quarter) and not put the game on Rex Grossman's incapable shoulders.

The engineer of the Colts offense is Peyton Manning, which is why he was the only choice for MVP.

Colts Face Tough Free Agent Road

It's going to be tough for Indianapolis to repeat in 2007. They're one of the few teams that are not in great shape cap-wise, and they have a slew of free agents to retain, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. Among them are:

Offense: RB Dominic Rhodes, OL Jake Scott (RFA), OL Ryan Lilja (RFA), WR Aaron Moorehead
Defense: DE Dwight Freeney, CB Nick Harper, LB Cato June, CB Jason David (RFA)