Finally...someone in the press thinks the Bears can win the big game!
1) Offense drives television ratings. Defense wins championships. Yes, the Colts have a juggernaut, boasting the NFL's third-best offense. Yes, Manning is great quarterback who is headed for the Hall of Fame. Guess what? So was Dan Marino. You can get there without winning a Super Bowl. New Orleans was the NFL's top offense this season, and Drew Brees was the only quarterback in the league to throw for more yards than Manning. Yet the Bears, playing the dominating D that carried them through the first 12 games of the season, held the Saints to 14 points in the NFC Championship game. You know that deer-in-the-headlights look that Manning can get after throwing a couple of picks? You haven't seen the last of it this year.
2) The Colts have already played their Super Bowl. Getting past the Patriots ... that was the monkey on Indy's back. Now that that dragon's been slayed, they're going to have an emotional letdown. The Bears, meanwhile, are quietly getting angrier at the lack of respect they've received in the national press and, locally, at being compared to the '85 Bears. There's only one way to stop all that and to validate their season. And it's not as if they're playing the '73 Miami Dolphins. Everyone seems to have forgotten that the Colts lost four of their last seven regular-season games. All four of those losses came on the road, outdoors. The Super Bowl will be played on the road, outdoors, and the Bears, as NFC champions, are the home team.
3) The good Rex will show up at the Super Bowl. Look, Grossman's a little like Jim McMahon was. He's cocky. He says goofy things. He's not technically perfect. He's not a student of the game. All he does is win. His team believes in him. His coach believes in him. Who cares what the critics think? Grossman will be back in Florida, where he almost won a Heisman Trophy (he finished second in the voting in '01 to Nebraska's Eric Crouch) playing for pass-happy Steve Spurrier. He has nothing but good memories of playing in the Sunshine State. His team is the underdog. He really has nothing to lose: all the experts have already decided he's a bum. Look for Grossman, who throws a great deep ball, to complete two passes for more than 50 yards. That will stretch the Colts defense and allow the Bears to run the ball.
4) The Bears don't get there very often, but when they come to a dance they know how to finish. They haven't lost in an NFL championship game since '56. OK, they're only 2-0 since then, but they're batting 1.000, having beaten the New York Giants in '63 and the Patriots in '86. The Colts are 1-1 in Super Bowl appearances, and have a rotten record as favorites. The Colts, then operating out of Baltimore, were the first NFL team to lose to the champions of the AFL, when as three-touchdown favorites they were embarrassed by Broadway Joe Namath and the New York Jets in '69.
5) As John Lennon used to say: "Number 9 ... number 9 ... number 9 ..." When the Bears get to a championship game, look for No. 9 to steal the show. In '63 it was quarterback Billy Wade upstaging the Giants great Y.A. Tittle. In '86 it was that Super Bowl shuffler McMahon racking up 46 points. against New England. In '07? The Man wearing No. 9 will be little Robbie Gould, who was the NFL's top kicker with 143 points in the regular season and booted the 49-yarder in overtime to get the Bears past Seattle in the first round of the playoffs. Grossman doesn't have to get the ball into the endzone. All he had to do is protect it and get the offense close enough for Gould to work his magic. About five field goals should do it.
Prediction: Bears 22, Colts 21.
