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Super Bowl XLI
Indianapolis Colts vs Chicago Bears
2/4/07
Is the match up what you figured? Did you have these two pegged all the way? Are you surprised? Whatever the case may be, this is the match up, and sometimes it's better to make some immediate observations from a betting standpoint before all the hoopla starts. Over the next two weeks there will be so many stories and so many experts telling you one thing or another. You're head will either be spinning and you won't know who you like, or you'll be 100% convinced based on articles you read in the mainstream media. For starters, these two teams deserve to be here. Simply put, Both teams won 15 games. At times it was spectacular, and at times it wasn't pretty. For both teams. They found ways to win. The Bears at times shut teams down with their defense and totally dominated. At other times they were involved in shootouts and still came away with the wins. Ditto for the Colts. They beat the Ravens in a game consisting of field goals. Yet they had plenty of games where they too won shootouts. What's not to like. Both of these teams can adapt and get it done with whatever type of a game they find themselves in.
While neither team is perfect, it's hard to find too much fault in either one. If you look at both teams losses, for the Bears, there was one game that counted that sticks out as a bad loss. That was the loss against the Dolphins back in November. Otherwise, you're looking at a 4 point loss to the Pats on the road (it was their 3rd straight road trip to the northeast) and a loss to Green Bay in the years final game, in a game which meant nothing to them.
For the Colts, as we have mentioned over and over, in their few losses, with the exception of the Jacksonville game, they were all last second losses that came as time expired.
So when you put it all together, you have two teams that really, no other teams have been able to put away. These two both have found ways to win, whether it be coming from way behind like the Bears did against the Cards earlier in the year and the Colts did against the Pats, or just plain dominating their opponent.
The defensive edge has to go to the Bears. They slipped some down the stretch, but came back just in time to beat the Seahawks and then dominate the Saints, the number one offensive team in the NFL this year. The Colts defense, which was absent for most of the year, somehow came to life in playoff games against the Chiefs and Ravens, but then seemed to disappear for most of the game against the Pats.
On offense, the edge goes to the Colts. But perhaps by not as large of a margin as people think. Yes, Peyton Manning is very good. But he's not invincible and at times is made to look ordinary. He's thrown his share of picks this year against much weaker defenses than the one he is going to face in the Super Bowl. Again, the Bears defense is right up there with the Ravens unit that kept Manning out of the end zone a couple of weeks ago.
I'm a little tired of hearing about Rex Grossman. The guy has been knocked by the media and by Bears fans in every possible way. Yet the kid keeps on smiling and is on his way to the Super Bowl. He's done what has been asked of him, all year long. While he has had some bad games, he's also near the top of all NFL quarterbacks with games of a QB rating over 100 (7 times). Hey, in the NFC title game, the Saints obviously felt that Grossman couldn't beat them. That strategy became apparent in the 2nd half as the Saints bottled up the Bears running game and forced Grossman to make plays. What happened? Grossman made plays. He stepped up under pressure in both playoff games and made BIG plays. It's not as if the Bears picked some kid off the street corner and asked him to quarterback the Bears. The kid went to Florida, also known as Quarterback U, and played under former Heisman trophy winning QB Steve Spurrier. He played in some big games at Florida and hung some big numbers on the board plenty of times. He also came within a few votes of actually winning the Heisman himself. The bottom line folks, is the kid can play football. He doesn't have all the hype, all the TV commercials, and other hoopla that comes with being Peyton Manning. But the kid will be just fine in the Super Bowl. Don't make the mistake of basing your selection on Manning over Grossman. There's much more to this game that that.
We often mention how our handicapping process includes coming up with our own line on the games. We have several methods we use to do this. We keep our own power ratings. We use yards per point. With have some other formulas we use using various other statistics. Often times the results are split, however we put more weight into one set of numbers over another based on many years of using these methods. The bottom line here is that not one of our methods favors the Colts here. Several say the wrong team is favored, and the one that favors the Colts has them as a field goal choice.
The yards per point line using the last 8 games for each team (excluding the Green Bay game for Chi) has the Bears by 6.5. Same method using the last 4 games favors the Bears by 3. Again, we are excluding the meaningless Packer game.
How about the road performance of both teams? All of the Colts losses came on the road. They were 5-4 overall on the road. Just .500 on the road during the regular season. The Bears on the other hand were 7-1 on the road. The Bears outscored their opponents on the road by an average of 25-16. The Colts were outscored on the road 24-23.
The surface for the Super Bowl is Grass. The Colts, a turf team, were 5-4 on grass and were outscored 25-24 while the Bears, whose home field is grass, were 11-2 on grass and outscored their opponents 28-15.
Expect Chicago running backs Cedric Benson and Thomas Jones to grab the spotlight on Super Sunday. No one has yet to take advantage of the Colts regular season league worst run defense in the playoffs. It can't last. Something has to give. That run defense is what it is. Which is not good, regardless of what has happened to this point in the playoffs. Both teams figure to find their way to the end zone on Super Sunday. But of the two defensive units, the Bears defense is the one that figures to make the big plays which could be the difference in the game.
The play is the Bears. Our numbers favor the Bears and we're getting a generous touchdown just in case they come up short but lose a close one. We have to worry about the week layoff before the game. Most of the close Super Bowls have come in years where there was no week off in between. All of the major Super Bowl blowouts have come with bye weeks. One team often adjusts to all the hoopla better than they other and ends up dominating. In this case, neither team has the Super Bowl experience. Neither team has been on this stage before. There is no quit in either one of these teams. We'd be surprised if the games outcome was not in doubt at the start of the 4th quarter.
Our Pick - Bears +7 over Colts (3*)
Hester may have a field day.
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