Peyton Will Prevail

This coming Sundays NFC /AFC Championship encounter between the Chicago Bears and The Indianapolis Colts will be the record tying ninth Super Bowl to be played in Miami tying New Orleans for the honour of being the most popular location for the NFL Championship extravaganza. It will be the fourth time it will be played at Dolphin Stadium as the previous five were held in the Orange Bowl in downtown Miami.It will be the 41st Super Bowl since its inception in January of 1966.

The economic impact on the Florida City is expected to be in the area of 300 million dollars with over 50 charitable activities and outreach programs being enriched and assisted financially as a result of the event.The game primarily on CBS high definition TV will be viewed by 150 million viewers in North America. .Jim Nance will call the plays and former New York Giant quarterback Phil Simms will handle the colour commentary.

A sellout crowd of seventy thousand fans will be in attendance at Dolphin Stadium paying any where from $350 to $3000 for a ticket.The NFC and AFC champions each get 17.5% of the available tickets while the host Miami Dolphins get 5.0% and the rest go on sale to the general public. CBS will be telecasting its 15th Super Bowl .and CBS Radio Westworld will be broadcasting its 20th consecutive and 33rd overall Super Bowl.

The game has incredible significance in that it is the first time in Super Bowl history that not just one but both head coaches are African American.Tony Dungy of the AFC Champion Indianapolis Colts and Lovie Smith of the NFC winners The Chicago Bears.are the leaders of the two participants. The unique part of this scenario is the close relationship between the two coaches.It could be argued that never before has there been "two best friends" coaching against each other for pro football,s greatest prize.The families are so close they even holiday together.Smith was the linebacker coach under head coach Dungy in Tampa Bay in 2000-2001.

The game features the 12-4 high octane offence of the AFC Colts who had arguably the second or third best offence in the entire NFL against the number one ranked NFC defence of the 13-3 Chicago Bears The Colts.Peyton Manning who figures to go down as one of the greatest Quarterbacks of all-time finally seems to have gotten the monkey off his back with his AFC championship playoff playoff performance in the come from behind 38-34 victory over the New England Patriots which showed all and sundry that he can win the big one..Manning had another great regular season completing 362 passes in 557 attempts.for 4397 yards for a very impressive 65% completion percentage and 31 touchdowns while giving up only nine interceptions.His over all season Quarterback rating was 101%.

The receiving corps of the Colts had another super season as well with Marvelous Marvin Harrison catching 95 passes for1366 yards and 12 touchdowns while averaging 14.4 yards per reception. and his battery mate Reggie Wayne snatched 86 aerials for 1310 yards and 9 tds and averaged 15.2 yards per reception.The ground game which was expected to suffer because of the loss of Edgerin James who went to Arizona as a free agent surprised everyone with Rookie Joseph Addai the clubs first round draft choice out of LSU leading the way with 1081 yards rushing followed by veteran Domonic Rhodes having his best year picking up 641..

The Colts go into the game as seven point favourites based on the consistent play of their offense and the improved play of their defense which was ranked 27th during the regular season but improved dramatically in the playoffs holding Kansas City to eight points and Baltimore to six on successive weekends.The Colts who fell behind 21-3 early in the second quarter to the Patriots in the AFC Championship game played on their home field displayed incredible character in coming back from that deficit to win the game and Mannings leadership ability and determination are credited with creating that comeback.The book on Manning coming out of college was that all you had to do was surround him with a couple of good receivers and give him some protection and he will pick apart a defense and win the big games and finally that analysis appears to be coming to fruition.

The Bears who had a most impressive regular season do not seem to be able to generate much respect from the so called experts mainly because of the lack of respect for their offense directed by former Florida Gator legend Rex Grossman who completed 54.6% of his passes during the regular season.for 3193 yards and 23Touchdowns to go.along with 20 interceptions for a 73.9 season ending rating.However it is his erratic season ending performances where he threw nine interceptions in the last three games and his penchant for losing concentration in critical situations that create the doubts that he can ever be classified as a top notch quarterback and in most of the experts thinking he is the weak link in what other wise is a tremendous Bear team.The running backs Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson are both top notch performers as are the wide receivers Bernard Berrian and Mushin Muhammad and rookie kick returner Devin Hester is in a class by himself.

This one though will be all about Peyton Manning finally reaching the ultimate goal of directing a Super Bowl Champion not only for himself and his teammates but for his Dad Archie who played brilliantly but achieved nothing during his career in New Orleans and for his much mailgned brother Eli the new York Giants often criticized brother.