Congrats to the Saints! I was rooting for them, but I also felt badly for Peyton Manning knowing that he'll get an unfair share of the blame for the loss (although he probably would have gotten an unfair share of the credit if the Colts won.)

Nice to see your friend win one, Ice. He seems like a very good guy.

Pretty good crop of commercials this year, I thought. "A milka-what??!!"

I have a different take:

Calculated Onside-kick Lifted The Saints

Super Bowl XLIV Becomes Most-Watched Program Of All Time
Posted on 08 February 2010 by Robert Seidman



Based on time-zone adjusted (but still preliminary) fast nationals, Super Bowl XLIV averaged over 106 million (106.5 million) and is set to overtake the 1983 series finale of M*A*S*H (105.97 million) to become the most-watched program of all time. Even more impressive as the MASH finale was only one hour and the Super Bowl averaged that many viewers for more than a 3 hour period.

FYI: per Nielsen 83.3 million TV homes in 1983 vs 114.9 million in 2010

With Super Bowls, it easily eclipsed the previous most-watched Super Bowl, last year’s Cardinals vs. Steelers game that averaged 98.7 million viewers.

Has anyone checked to see if LN is still alive?

That was probably the coldest (read: greatest) comment I've ever seen from you JL.

Payback from when he drives me nuts during Fantasy Football season.

HAHA I know...but he drives everyone nuts during Fantasy Football**

That's true.

My son, who is a massive Saints fan and an even bigger Drew Brees fan is quite ecstatic

The BBC had good coverage this year, with both Rod Woodson and San Fran QB Alex Smith involved

Hall of Famer Woodson I get, but Alex Smith? What, Tim Couch wasn't available?

But yeah congrats to The Saints for playing better, a better gameplan, and a not-so-conservative coach.

And remember, my Dolphins passed on Brees in favor of Dante Culpepper.

This is funny:

Colts Fans -- All 11 of Them -- Welcome Team at Airport

Alex Smith apparently because the 49ers play the Broncos in London in October this year so he he was here doing press junket type stuff!!

Peyton "Happy Feet" Manning joins hall of famers Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer in having one Super Bowl win. I think Jonathan Vilma got into his head. If you noticed, Vilma would not comit himself defensively until after Manning called his last audible.

Manning walked off the field without shaking anyone's hand. What a class act.

Man those Londoners got hosed on that match-up. Better a game than none at all I suppose.

I wouldn't take anything away from Manning and the Colts. The Saints played a flawless game. You could say it was destiny because statistically Minnesota beat the shit out of them in the NFC Championship and the Saints came away winners. Hey, that's the way the ball bounces sometimes.

last time i checked minnesota didnt do nothing but gave the ball up...minnesota was the lucky ones

Come on out of hiding, Longneck. You're a good boy, but I want you to man-up and make a post.

Don't be like the overly political ninnies on this site, who disappear for months after their candidate or party loses. You're better than that. Much better.

They lost. Get over it. No one's comparing these Colts to the underachieving Bills, who lost 4 straight Super Bowls in the '90s. Jim Kelly couldn't shine Peyton Manning's cleats (but he could probably drink him under the table ).

I think the best comparison might not even be football. It's probably to the Atlanta Braves, who only won a single World Series during a run that included a mind blowing 14 straight division titles.

I was thinking the same thing, Pizza Boy. Although I didn't talk trash to the degree Longneck did, I did post the day after Florida demolished Ohio State in the BCS Game. Watching your favorite team lose sucks, but hey it is only a game.

I've been far too concerned with my wife being in the hospital to care about coming here to post about the colts

I'm sorry to hear that, LN. Is she okay?

Hope everything is OK LN.

My wife has been to the hospital a few times since Saturday, she has a large kidney stone that is impossible to pass on her own, they put in a stent, she got an infection and lots o pain. She ended up getting admitted for pain control and whatnot.

The hospital, which is horrible and I will go out of my way not to go there in the future, will not have the machine to break up the stone until Monday. She's on pain meds and antibiotics and a med for something else, to deal with her kidney. She is still in a lot of pain and is not able to lift or anything so I had to take leave from work, which I went to a meeting right before telling them this where they gave me a final warning for missing work (I'd missed saturday and monday).

Molly has had a fever the last 2 days and so I've been taking care of her too. Went to the doc today and they said it was viral and just said to give motrin and fluids.

They are both taking a nap now so now I can defend my team



QBs to win and lose a super bowl; john elway, brett favre, kurt warner, tom brady, bob greise, len dawson...and the best ever, peyton manning.

Happy Feet is the reason he hardly ever gets sacked. Our O-line is not that great outside of Saturday. They talked about this awhile back on TV analyzing how he steps once he takes a snap, it's good fundamentals.



Kind of hard to do with confetti flying and people rushing the field. Have you ever seen a super bowl loser do this or do you just hate Peyton Manning to an extent where you find any reason to bash him?

Here's a site you may enjoy: http://www.manningface.com Eli is on there too.

Indianapolis Colts' Peyton Manning Is Now an Enigma

By Steve Thompson, The Bleacher Report

There is no doubt Peyton Manning was the biggest loser of Super Bowl XLIV. Until he wins the Super Bowl more often, his rank on the all time list of quarterbacks is going to be devalued.

Having had mindless praise heaped on his head almost continually since he joined the Indianapolis Colts, many people are now going to have second thoughts about him after the favored Colts lost to the New Orleans Saints.

They are going to say when he had the chance to make plays, he didn't make them. Instead of the winning drive, there was the interception.

After Super Bowl XLIV, where does Peyton Manning rank on the all-time quarterback list in the NFL?

Clearly Manning ranks above the average quarterback, even above many of those who have hoisted the Vince Lombardi trophy, but until he wins the Super Bowl more often, he can't be mentioned on the same level with Montana, Bradshaw, Starr, Brady, Aikman, etc.

Instead Manning is on tier two, with Farve, Stabler, Elway, McMahon, and Staubach.

He's a cut above the group that includes Fran Tarkenton, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, and Dan Fouts. In that group, the label is "great, but couldn't win the big one". In Manning's group, the label is "great, but should have won more".

Great quarterbacks are said to live for the moment that Manning found himself in during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl; the quarterback finding his team down, leads the offense down the field and scores the touchdown on that final drive that wins or ties the game.

In baseball, it is the equivalent of a starting pitcher appearing in the decisive game of the World Series, and saying, "Give me the ball."

Well the ball was placed in Manning's hands at the right moment, but he threw an interception that produced a two-score game. Instead of leading a Montana or Brady-like drive, he didn't even engineer a score that would have allowed the Colts to try an onside kick for a last-gasp desperation play.

Lots of credit has to go to the New Orleans defense and Sean Payton's strategy for defending Manning, but the Saint's defense won't go down as one of the greatest in Super Bowl history. The front four doesn't even have a nickname.

So what went wrong?

Perhaps a closer comparison with one of the other quarterbacks in Manning's peer group, John Elway might provide a clue.

Ever since he arrived in the NFL, the billing in Indianapolis has been "Peyton Manning and the Colts". But football is a team game. In team sports, it is the great team, not the great player that usually wins.

In hockey, Wayne Gretzky never won another Stanley Cup once he left Edmonton. Ernie Banks, Ted Williams, Harmon Killebrew, and countless other great players in baseball never won a World Series.

The Colts are built around Manning. They expect him to win the game. But so was John Elway in Denver.

Elway was on his way to becoming the biggest failure in Super Bowl history until Terrell Davis arrived. Then the Broncos found other ways to win games instead of relying exclusively on Elway. Once another weapon was added, Denver won two Super Bowls.

The Colts have had some great players to go along with Manning, and the defense was greatly improved this year under Jim Caldwell, but it's overdue to recognize that one player can't win a team game by himself.

Still, those last two drives hurt Manning's reputation. This was the time to be the difference, but he was the difference for the wrong team. It is now Drew Brees' chance to move into the territory that Manning has vacated.

So, where does he rank all time?

It really is an enigma.

People want to rank him higher because of the winning record that the Colts have amassed during regular season.

But, he doesn't compare well to perhaps the greatest quarterback ever to play football, Cleveland Browns star quarterback, Otto Graham in the 1940's and 1950's.

Nobody will ever know how great Graham was because Cleveland played in two leagues and statistics were not kept.

But, there is one statistic that does jump out: championship victories. In Graham's 10 year career with the Browns, Cleveland went to the championship every year, winning seven of them. Nobody else in the history of football is even close.

Graham's career record is 105-17-4. Compared to him, Manning is just a footnote.

It's not over for Peyton Manning, as long as he plays, there are still chances for him to start climbing up the quarterback ranks again.

He will probably needs help though. It doesn't have to be a running back—an outstanding defense made Terry Bradshaw a winner four times.

Now is the time for reevaluation, not condemnation. The Colts made great strides, particularly on defense this year.

If they keep moving in the right direction, Manning will be a champion again. But for now he is a puzzling enigma.

You forgot about a guy named Roger Staubach who went 2-2 in the Superbowl--both loses coming to Bradshaw's Steelers by a combined 8 points.

Beaten by the Steelers, a combined 8 points and a guy named Jackie Smith .

All I have to say about Peyton Manning is 0-4 versus Florida (and you can't say those Tennessee teams weren't any good, they won the title the year AFTER Manning left for the NFL!) When he threw that interception in the 4th quarter the other night it was like watching him face Bob Stoops' Gator defense all over again.

I'm sorry, but really; when the heat is on, when the season is at stake, or the team has to have a score in a big-time game, Manning gets all flustered and red in the face. I'm telling you, he's a choker....just like his DADDY was!!

And given who his daddy is, and all of the opportunities Peyton's had in his life to develop his skills through camps and preparatory schools and such, he should do more than just win regular season matchups every year against the weak AFC south.

His claim to fame thus far is that he beat Rex Grossman in the Super Bowl and in the process prevented Tom Brady from winning his 4th Superbowl, which would have constituted utter blasphemy to the football Gods!

But a damn fine actor - I thought those Mastercard commercials he did were some of the funniest I'd seen all year. Seriously lmao@!

LN, my husband had the same procedure for kidney stones. He had them broken down to smaller pieces and had the stent put it to make the pieces easier to pass. As bad as the procedure was, the time leading up to it was a million times worse. So sorry to hear this, and best wishes to your wife.

As for your little one, I hated the viral "motrin and fluids" diagnosis. Those seem to drag on forever.

Good luck to you, LN. Sorry about your team, but they gave you a wonderful season to be proud of.

My regards to your family also, LN.
And truth be told: I think a betting-man would be wise to pick your boys next yr!

LN, I hope your wife and baby girl feel better soon. Please keep us posted on how they are doing. Take care!!