OK, for the record, my pick in the Super Bowl:  Colts by 10, in a high-scoring affair.

Set aside the end of the regular season when the Colts and Saints were resting.  Look at the two teams’ run in the playoffs.  Indianapolis has rolled through two stout defenses while two weeks ago New Orleans needed overtime to beat a team that turned the ball over 5 times.

The Saints’ strategy will be to punish Peyton Manning as they did Brett Favre.  Good strategy if you can make it a reality, but bad idea to talk about it.  First of all, if there is a quarterback the refs will protect more than Brett Favre, it’s Peyton Manning.  Second, the day after New Orleans made their defensive game-plan known, the NFL came out and admitted that the Saints should have been flagged for one of their more egregious hits on Favre.  If you put Manning on the ground today, it had better be super clean.

All that aside, I don’t think New Orleans can pressure the QB in a game-changing way.  Indy has a decent line and Manning is second to none in his ability to read, adjust at the line and get rid of the ball quickly.  You won’t get to Manning with your base package and when you blitz he’ll find the open man.

I see Indy coming out and playing their game.  A lot of no huddle, and surgical precision.

So it will be the Saints’ challenge to try and keep up.  And that’s where it gets interesting.  You can’t look past New Orleans’ offense.  I don’t think the Colts “D” can shut them down.  But I do think they can come up with enough stops to give Peyton Manning breathing room.  The potential absence or reduced effectiveness of Dwight Freeney made me dial my pick back from two touchdowns.

Aside from the analysis, I also shudder to imagine the love-fest and avalanche of political correctness that will be unleashed should the Saints win.  If you’ve lost your home or are still struggling to get your business back on its feet after 4 1/2 years, a month from now is it really going to make a difference who won the Super Bowl?  Don’t let the blabbering mouths deceive you with overestimations of the importance of the sport from which they derive their livelihood.  Big game.  Exciting.  But next week we’ll be talking about who is on the bubble for March Madness.

Warning:  This could well degenerate into an extended Favre rant … we’ll see.

First of all, I must concede.  Coming into this season, I fully expected to see NY Jets Favre, or 2nd last Packer season Favre this year.  I figured him for 50/50 picks/TD’s.  And I didn’t see him lasting the whole season.  Couldn’t have been more wrong.  This season was a smash, and even more so when you consider the age factor.

That said, the old gunslinger showed up just in time to save Packer fan from two weeks, and possibly an entire off-season of miserable Favre over-exposure.  Sure, there is plenty of blame to go around.  Had “All Day” managed to hang on to the ball that last drive might have been irrelevant.  The sudden shift to conservative mode in that series didn’t help.  12 men in the huddle set Favre up.  But!  Up to that moment the Vikings were still in position to ice a trip to the Super Bowl in the closing seconds of regulation.  Alas, this was not the first, or even the second time that a Favre-led team’s final play of the season on offense resulted in an interception.  Thank you, football gods.

– B –

So now begins the annual “Will Favre retire?” off-season circus.  The really awesome thing is that no one, not even Favre himself, could say anything to squelch this noise.  God Himself could descend on halftime at the Super Bowl and announce Favre’s plans and no one would believe it.  LOL!!  Enjoy it Minnesota.  You get what you pay for.

– B –

For a serious analysis of the prospects … Even if Favre were in his prime, expecting another season like this one would be quite a reach.  Only Manning and Brady can turn in seasons like that year after year.  In addition, Green Bay and Chicago are on the rise.  The Vikings’ schedule will be tougher.

On the other hand, whether or not Favre is wiped out right now is irrelevant.  It has been years … YEARS since Favre didn’t feel like retiring at this time of the year.  Next August he’ll be rested.  The whole world will be talking about football.  He’ll get that itch.

Brad Childress has said he won’t put a deadline on Favre’s decision.  Wow.  Generous of him.  Like deadlines have ever accomplished anything with Favre.  And besides, isn’t Childress the guy who picked Favre up at the airport, halfway through the pre-season last Summer?

Minnesota is playing with fire.  A lot of things are forgotten when a team wins 13 games.  If the Vikings were to start out next season by losing a couple of games, let’s see how many players would forget that Favre was kicking back at home while they were puking in the summer sun.

– B –

How many playoff games has Aaron Rodgers won?  Wow, am I getting sick of hearing this one.  Comparing an 18-yr vet to a 2-yr starter?  Rodgers compares favorably to Favre at the same point in his career, and he is far ahead of prime time Favre in the reckless department.

– B –

Do you know where your QB is?  To me this is the major issue here.  Do you know who your QB will be two seasons from now?  A team either knows this, or has a problem that will preclude major success.  Green Bay knows who their QB of the future is.  So do the NY Jets.  Minnesota?  We won’t know who their 2010 signal caller is until kickoff in the regular season.  Two years from now?  It’s a good bet he’s not on their current roster. 

– B –

Moving on … would they give up on the Pro Bowl already.  After this season, the league’s “All Star” game will feature neither Peyton Manning nor Drew Breese?  Ridiculous.  This concept just doesn’t work with Pro Football.  The sport is so physical that each contest takes its toll on all who participate.  Risk of injury makes a mid-season classic impossible.  And by the time the season is over, everyone is out of gas.

– B –

Finally, I’m picking the Colts.  Prior to the Conference Championships my thought was that whoever came out of the NFC would be my overwhelming favorite.  But, I was expecting Indy to struggle with the Jets.  Actually, the Colts are playing their best football of the season right now.  Credit the Jets “D.”  They did a good job of curtailing Wayne and Clark.  Manning was still able to carve them up.  And I don’t see Indy helping the Saints out with massive turnovers.

Either way I’m really looking forward to the game.

Honestly, I’m getting sick of posting on this general topic.  However, the fallout from recent events has brought to a head a lot of the frustration that this voter has been feeling for the last year.  Not the last two years.  Not the last eight years.  The last, single, year.  It is arrogance that inspires my angst.

Now this word, arrogance, is thrown around a lot in political talk.  I’m here to discuss what it means to me, but my guess is that I’m not alone in my definition.

For me, arrogance refers to the attitude in Washington, and especially with our President, that says, “We know better that you do what is in your best interest.”

And despite being taken to the woodshed in Massachusetts, President Obama appears not to have the first idea that this kind of arrogance is part of his problem.  Excerpts from his interview with George Stephanopoulos after the Massachusetts special election …

“People are angry, and they’re frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

Let’s just ignore the tired “Blame Bush” strategy.  This is classic Obama.  Polling of the voters in Massachusetts made it abundantly clear that Brown’s victory was a repudiation, not solely of Obama, but definitely of specific events that have been part of the past year’s orgy of appropriation in our nation’s Capitol.  Still here is Obama, helping the voters understand why they voted the way they did, just in case they didn’t know.  See, our President the narcissist believes that he can say anything and make it be so through the sheer force of his personality.

“If there’s one thing that I regret this year, is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us, that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are …”

This was the telling one.  Is he suggesting he embarked on the past year’s grand agenda without knowing or considering the values of the American people.  Doubtful.  He didn’t suggest listening to the American people.  He suggested talking to them.  So I believe his point is far more sinister than that.  He regrets that he didn’t do a good enough job of telling us what our values are or should be.  Again, he believes that through artful persuasion he can change the core of a man.  Frankly, that arrogance pisses me off.

If you look behind a lot of what the President has undertaken this year you’ll see that these aren’t isolated issues that needed fixing.  He is seeking to impose a fundamental change in how Americans act and what they value.  For example, he blatantly seeks to undermine the corporate leaders and prop up unions.  Through “Cash for Clunkers” he attempted to prop up a union-dominated industry in a not too subtle way, by paying citizens to buy new cars.  The last handout attached to the now faltering health care initiative was the exemption for union members.  This wasn’t just to curry favor for the bill.  It was to create a situation that would incentivize union membership.  Screw “Card Check.”  Who needs intimidation when bribery will do the trick?

Of course, in the words above and throughout the interview he repeated that he feels he just didn’t do a good enough job of explaining x to the American people.  For the love of God, NO!  Does this mean that now he’s going to do even more talking?  On the contrary, it’s high time for President Obama to shut up and listen!

Thankfully he won’t … even to save his own skin.

Scott Brown the Republican did not win last night’s special election for the US Senate seat vacated by the passing of Ted Kennedy.  Scott Brown the guy who isn’t a partisan, out of touch, political hack won.

Thank God he knows it.  In his acceptance speech Brown used party labels only once, in talking about how he will work with Democrats and Republicans.  He saluted Massachusetts independents twice in the opening moments of the speech.  But trumping them all he used “machine” in a derogatory reference to the political establishment, five times.

This was not a victory for Republicans.  It was a victory for the angry and fed up.  If Republicans want to claim a party victory and immediately begin counting November victories, let them.  This will make it that much easier to identify those on that side of the aisle who also need to be shown the door.

Obviously the big news is Massachusetts.

I had two concerns coming into the night.  1. There was so much focus on Scott Brown winning, that the main message would be lost if Coakley somehow salvaged a narrow victory.  Victory was won and the message sent when President Obama had to run back to Massa-freakin-chusetts two days before the election to try to save a Democrat.

And 2. That this voter uprising would serve as a wake-up call for all of the political hacks in Washington, and allow them to pull out of their self-inflicted nose dive just in time to avoid disaster next November.  Bill Bennett pointed out this morning that victory obscures the message while defeat clarifies it.

Well, #1 is a moot point.  But the fact that Brown won makes #2 even more straightforward.  All year long the Big Government crowd has ignored signal after signal and continued to pursue their hard left agenda.  This was a shot across the bow that can’t be ignored.

Thankfully I don’t believe it is possible to under-estimate a politician.  Early indications out of the White House and Congressional Leadership show a clear willingness to continue to test the limits of voter fury.  I must admit, I’m surprised.  These guys may not have the first clue how to fix health care or the economy, but they do know all about personal survival.  Of course they’ve never had to play the game without compliant voters before.  It’s a sea change for which they are unprepared and ill-equipped.

One last thing:  I’m sick of hearing how Obama is a moderate just because he has done a few things that aren’t ultra-liberal such as parting with the Public Option and stepping up in Afghanistan.

Pfft.  Please.  He may be clueless but he’s not an idiot.  You know, before he was in that one ceremony he was in that other one.  Obama has departed from his agenda only when he had no choice.  To pull out of Afghanistan would have been a disaster.  A very public, highly visible, disaster.  And the public option didn’t have a chance.  He gave up what he couldn’t keep.

But enough of what he didn’t do.  There are plenty of actual accomplishments of note from Barry’s first year on the job.  He has presided over concerted efforts to interfere with business and redistribute wealth, the likes of which hasn’t been for decades, if ever.  He has undermined our intelligence infrastructure leaving us vulnerable.  But hey, the media is all too happy to give him credit for admitting that we’re vulnerable, so it’s all good.  Rogue nations around the world thumb their noses at us and the apology world tour failed to win any allies in an effort to curb them.

In short … moderate, my ass.

At WalMart the other day I noticed a sign on one of the little cubicles in the front of the store where Jackson Hewitt does tax preparation:  “9 out of 10 Jackson Hewitt filers receives a refund.”

This is not a commentary on Jackson Hewitt.  It’s a commentary on people who get their taxes prepared at WalMart.  People who treat their withholding like a Christmas Club account.  Every January is like Let’s Make a Deal to them.  January, not April because, you know, it’s OK if the govt holds your money for 12 months, but not 2 1/2 months longer, that’s for sure.  Anyway, each January they know they are getting something.  Whether it’s a wheel barrow full of Jiffy Pop or a pile of cash remains to be seen.

Time to catch up on the NFL where, this past Sunday, we saw that same magic that has made Wade Phillips and Norv Turner the unremarkable and overpositioned head coaches that they are.

In San Diego the Chargers continue to be under-achievers under Turner.  And let’s just dispel a few misconceptions here.  It wasn’t about missed field goals.  It wasn’t about an on-sides kick.  It was under-achievement, pure and simple.  Those things didn’t help, but this was the NFL version of the Massachusetts Senate Race.  It shouldn’t have been so close that a field goal or two would matter.  The game shouldn’t have been in doubt with two minutes left.

Big relief though.  Folks (not sure who) were worried that Turner might be fired.  Silly Charger fans.  If a coach wants out of San Diego he needs to win 14 regular season games.

Thankfully, Wade Phillips has a couple of things going for him.  First, expectation management.  So much has been made of the annual December / Playoff swoon, that suddenly one playoff victory constitutes a smashing success.  Heck, one playoff victory in three seasons with this highly talented team and not only is Phillips coming back, Jerry Jones is talking extension.

And there’s the main thing in Phillips’ favor.  Jerry Jones would sooner die than and admit fallibility.  Phillips was his decision, mainly because Phillips is, um, malleable.  That’s the kind of coach Jones likes.  Not guys like Jimmy Johnson who can be a major distraction, what with all of their success.  Jones has been criticized for the Phillips hire ever since he made it.  This means that Phillips will not be leaving Dallas until he either wins a Super Bowl or dies trying.  No, wait, no, even death won’t offer an escape.  Jones will continue to roll his cold, pudgy corpse out to the sideline each Sunday until some season, if only by pure chance, Dallas stumbles ass-backwards into something resembling post-season success.

I was really getting frustrated.  I couldn’t get my laptop to hold a wireless connection with my router, even when sitting six feet away.  I was starting to wonder if they hadn’t somehow integrated the pinch from Oceans 11 into the insulation in my walls.

Well, turns out there are some pretty heavily-traveled WiFi channels in this network.  And my router, set to auto-select was making some pretty bad choices on my behalf.  So, I’ve taken over the play-calling duties when it comes to the router, and low and behold … reliable wireless!

I can only assume there are up to 15 other people around here experiencing the same problem judging by the latest scan.  Here’s hoping they don’t figure it out and start clogging up the other channels.

Seattle?  Gotta admit, I was shocked.  Pete Carroll has one of the best pro football gigs going at USC.  Why would he stoop to take the Seahawks job?

It’s called the Calipari Gambit and it works!  When the NCAA starts sniffing around and hitting pay dirt, it’s time to move on and leave the school to pay for the corruption on your watch.  Fair enough.  USC hired Carroll from the NFL.  They knew he had a history of paying his players.

And let’s face it, Carroll has led a charmed life recently.  Any time you can hand out a house and continue on as head coach for an additional 5 years … it’s all gravy.

Two things killed Donald Trump’s Apprentice franchise; getting rid of any judges whose last name wasn’t Trump, and a severe decline in the quality of the candidates.  Now, I believe, the Celebrity Apprentice series is at a similar crossroads.

Once again, contestant quality is the key.  Season 1 of CA was awesome because it featured strong AND enjoyable personalities.  Gene Simmons was the king of all Apprentice candidates.  The only shame there was that the same qualities that made Simmons fun, also saw him leave way too early.  No problem, though.  Piers Morgan quickly picked up the slack.  Even if you didn’t like him before the show, his one-on-one battles with Omarosa (a never-been, ill-matched among a collection of has-been’s and still-are’s) made him an instant hero.  In short that was one great season, besting the later seasons of the original Apprentice series.

Unfortunately, last year’s CA was as bad as the first season was good, and again the cast was the driving force.  The main problem was that the men were soft, or drunk, and the women took the show over.  And before I really get in trouble, it wasn’t just that it was the women leading the way, it was WHICH women took control.  You had Joan Rivers, her daughter Melissa and Annie Duke who turned out to be a white Omarosa, with the only difference being that Duke has real life accomplishments.  The show quickly turned caustic and stayed catty to the end.

So, another season is queuing up, and in looking over the celebs, I’m concerned.  There are possibilities, but no one who jumps right out as sure-fire.  The gang …

Summer Sanders:  An Olympian, kind of like Jenny Finch in season 1.  Finch was pretty and capable enough, but uninteresting and not up to the ruthless element of the game.

Sinbad: Oh man, remember the good ol’ days.  You know, when Sinbad was funny.

Holly Robinson:  I’ll always remember her as the smoking hot, light chocolate detective from 21 Jump Street.  So, if it were 20 years ago this might be compelling.  Hard to picture her adding much entertainment value today.

Cyndi Lauper:  OK, She Bop is one of my guilty pleasure songs from the 80’s.  However, when she’s not squeaking out her bubble gum pop hits, Lauper is a little off.  Not Gene Simmons off.  Crazy old guy who lives in a weed-covered shack and only comes out every 20 years off.

Brett Michaels:  OK, possibilities here.  I could see this guy being a lot of fun.  And young, blonde, well-endowed hoochies flock to him like flies to dung, so there are always possibilities there.  But here’s the question:  Is headwear appropriate in the board room?  The thing with Michaels is that his cowboy hat and bandanas tend to make his hair look longer … A LOT longer if you, ahem, catch my drift.  Some of us have conceded that battle, but then some of us aren’t rock stars.

Darryl Strawberry:  Interesting.  I want to root for this guy.  But I’m just not sure if he’s genuine and has gotten his life on track.  Was his tell-all book therapy, or a cash grab?  If he turns out to be another Rodman, for whom CA 2 was a mere detour en route to Dr Drew’s Celebrity Rehab, I’ll be supremely disappointed.

Rod Blagojevich:  One thing’s for sure – he’s going to be one of the main cogs in the hype machine for this season.  And I guess I’d be more excited about this choice if he didn’t have sleaze oozing from every pore of his body.

Sharon Osbourne:  The surest bet in the group, and my pre-season favorite.  She’ll be strong, fun, and able to mix it up with any three Trumps you care to throw at her.  My only reservation is that if the show starts to go the route of last year’s version, it will almost be beneath her.

So, I’m eager to give the new version another shot.  Please, the Donald, don’t disappoint me.