Sports Columns
Instead of seeing more magic from Peyton Manning, we watched as the Super Bowl took a surprising twist. It was a fall from grace for the NFL’s favorite quarterback.
As far as coach-quarterback combinations go, only a couple in the NFL inspire belief in bettors more than Sean Payton and Drew Brees. Who imagined the New Orleans Saints would be considered cutting edge and hip?
Throw out the two games the Indianapolis Colts tanked, a self-sabotage scenario which threatened the integrity of the NFL, and Peyton Manning is 16-0 as a starting quarterback this season. Manning has won every game the Colts didn’t try to lose. In reality, he has a perfect record.
Only in the Super Bowl can a golfer (Phil Mickelson), a hockey star (Sidney Crosby) and a socialite/TV personality (Kim Kardashian) figure into the outcome of a wager. This is a football game unlike any other.
The betting public has already picked a side. The Indianapolis Colts are 51/2-point favorites over the New Orleans Saints on Feb. 7 in Miami, and Las Vegas sports books are getting flooded with cash on the Colts.
The books and contrarians will pull for Drew Brees and the Saints to slay the NFL’s Goliath quarterback, Peyton Manning.
It was at the Super Bowl a few years back, during the commissioner’s annual news conference two days before kickoff, when I asked Roger Goodell about the possibility of an NFL team ever making Las Vegas home.
Betting against Peyton Manning is rarely advised. It’s not as dumb as staring into the summer sun, which is a no-win situation, but it does fall in the category of playing with fire.
You can define most college football bowl games by the roller coaster of your choice. Teams either arrive at the top of the first drop or have already plummeted to its base.
Thankfully, things might not be as crazy around here as I feared last week.
Six weeks. Six months. Doesn’t matter. When entering into contract negotiations for securing your lot in life as a college football bowl game, specific facts always determine your fate.
Mike Stoops arrived in town with his Arizona football team Tuesday evening, put the Wildcats through a snow-flurried practice the following morning, stepped inside the Lied Athletic Complex at UNLV and answered questions about his program’s first bowl game in a decade.
There is a Hawaiian legend about mythical creatures who wander island forests at night, using their vast strength for achievements in engineering and construction before the sun rises. They are said to be no more than 2 feet tall, and some reach just 6 inches. Magical little people.
The national glare on college football is its usual powerful November self, what with more BCS updates than holiday sales and those in South Bend buying out the town’s supply of toilet paper to wrap around Charlie Weis’ house and trees and car and anything else connected with the besieged and yet handsomely compensated Notre Dame coach.
