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The huge key in the game is which Colts defense shows up. That one from the regular season, or the one from the playoffs? The Colts are about as balanced as the Bears. The Bears are a below average to average offense with a great defense, and the Colts are a great offense with a below average to average defense. Both special teams do what their teams need them to (the Bears, with their poorer offense need more special teams plays out of their returners, while the Colts need primarily a great kicker and punter, which they have). The key question then becomes which maligned unit shows up more. Does the Colts defense remain as they have been, or does the Bears offense have a big day? Whichever unit wins that battle should probably win the game.

Also be careful blitzing Manning too much...he can make you pay. The Bears are not a blitzing team. They haven't been all year. They get the majority of the pressure from their front four, while Briggs, Urlacher, and Hillenmeyer drop back into their coverages. Occasionally you'll see Briggs or Urlacher come on a blitz, but it's pretty rare. They do show blitz quite often and back off into coverage though. And yes, the problem with blitzing the Colts is, if you don't get to Manning, he will make you pay because there is now an open spot somewhere on the field. How much has Lovie Smith changed his defense from Dungy's defense? Aren't they still basically the same, just the Bears have much better athletes and execution (except for the Colts playoffs :D ). I've heard all this, and this sounds exactly like the Colts. So-which QB gets the advantage by having two weeks to prepare for a defense that their head coach knows very, very well?

the national media hates the colts! Regardless, it's unprecedented as far as NFL talk is concerned, I wasn't really comparing them to college football, where the discussion often centers around a whole lot more than the game (ie, polls/BCS controversy, etc) It's unprecedented as far as NFL talk goes? What about the Patriots first Super Bowl (first thing I thought of)? I thought that the Patriots in 2001 were disrespected a lot more than the Bears are right now. Nobody even gave them a chance to be close in that game, while I've heard praise for the Bears (even from the people who are not picking them to win) from at least a couple national outlets just yesterday. Even if you think the Bears disrespect measures up to that Patriots disrespect, this sort of talk is certainly not "unprecedented as far as NFL talk is concerned".

the national media hates the colts! Seriously, what's with the trolling? You're acting more and more like an Eagles fan every day. The national media has unloaded almost an unprecedented level of hate on the Bears this postseason. To pretend otherwise, or that Bears fans are paranoid for thinking this is just complete ignorance of the facts. The Bears aren't even the most criticized team to play for a title in 2007 - the Florida Gators take that honor, and they take it miles ahead of the Bears. I would definitely agree with that sentiment.

The D-Line by itself might be able to get pressure on Manning occasionally, but not often. The O-line for the Colts is usually very solid, especially in pass blocking. I'm really not sure how to stop Manning with a 4-3 defense. I've seen it done with a 3-4 before, but never even close to consistently with a 4-3. The Eagles have tried both ways against Manning-one game they blitzed him constantly, and he torched them. This year they went into nickle the whole game, and the Colts just ran the ball every play. If the Bears play soft, the Colts will just throw their 10-12 yard outs every play. I think the Bears will have to try to mix it up in this game, and throw a huge number of different looks at the Colts. While they may not confuse Manning, just the time figuring them out may slow him down, and possibly allow the Bears to get out to a lead. The Colts have been a 2nd half team all year, so it wouldn't surprise me to see the Bears defense dominate a little bit early.

I'm all for running more than we pass, and I think our play action can be really effective in this game, but Rex is going to have to make some plays too. The Colts have really zoned in on the run the last few weeks, and I think we can take advantage of that in the passing game. A good balance, with a few more runs than passes is the way to attack the Colts now. I actually think a key for the Bears might be establishing the pass early. No team in the playoffs have really been able to pass consistently in the playoffs, which has allowed the Colts to load up against the run. Some passes early by Grossman might loosen up that Colts defense, because they will be expecting the Bears to try to establish the run early.

I actually was reading on my Colts board, and was just coming here to post this-shame on me for thinking I could get a scoop on the Bears before a Bears fan :D . Respect my authoritay! :D Hopefully the Colts can get their own good news soon, and the Nick Harper ankle injury is a basketball sprain and not a high ankle sprain. He has been so good this season flying under the radar-no team wants to throw at him much. An interesting stat BTW is that the Colts have not allowed a 100 yard receiver all season. It doesn't mean much for the game, but I love those little tidbits. To be fair that could be because they allowed a 100 yard rusher in every game this season, and teams ran on them more than threw. That's true, but not every team did that. Many teams still threw 30 or 35 passes (for example, Brunell threw 37 times, Brady threw 35 in the regular season, 34 more in the playoff game, Palmer threw 28 times, Leftwich threw 28 times, and a couple others threw at least 28 passes in a game), and with some of the great receivers that are in this league one would think that at least one of them would have gotten 100 yards (admittedly also, the Colts avoided some of the teams with great receivers, but they did have some on their schedule as well).

I actually was reading on my Colts board, and was just coming here to post this-shame on me for thinking I could get a scoop on the Bears before a Bears fan :D . Respect my authoritay! :D Hopefully the Colts can get their own good news soon, and the Nick Harper ankle injury is a basketball sprain and not a high ankle sprain. He has been so good this season flying under the radar-no team wants to throw at him much. An interesting stat BTW is that the Colts have not allowed a 100 yard receiver all season. It doesn't mean much for the game, but I love those little tidbits.

I actually was reading on my Colts board, and was just coming here to post this-shame on me for thinking I could get a scoop on the Bears before a Bears fan :D .

I think either style coach can have success. Coaching isn't about yelling at or being buddy-buddy with players, it's about getting the most out of players, and either style can do that. The differences between Lovie and Dusty (other than talent level of the team) are so great. Lovie has shown no reluctance to bench players while they are not performing, yet knows when to stick by a guy (Grossman). Lovie's team plays hard. Lovie's team doesn't make many fundamental mistakes. Lovie puts guys in position to have success. Dusty was a disaster. I assume Lovie is more aggressive outside of the game, like practice & all. While Dusty is nowhere. I assume at least a couple, if not several of the Bears assistant coaches are fiery and the type to ream people out. As far as the running games go, the Chiefs and Ravens didn't run it as much because all their runs were getting stuffed at the line, plus they had fallen behind the Colts by more than a TD. The Bears will have to be unpredictable on offense to keep the Colts from just rushing at the RB like he was Grossman on a passing down. That's exactly right. Teams like KC didn't have a very small number of rushing attempts because they abandoned the run too soon, but rather because it was going nowhere. Remember, they didn't get a first down until the 3rd quarter, so it's not like they had many plays. Let's look at their first few possessions of the game: 1st possession 1st down-LJ for 0 2nd down-LJ for 2 3rd down-Green pass incomplete Seems right here? They tried to run it down the Colts throat, and on 3rd and 8 they were forced to pass. 2nd possession 1st down-Pass to Gonzlalez for 4 2nd down-LJ for 1 3rd and 5-Pass incomplete You can question their first down pass, but it gained more yardage than any of their 3 runs have so far, and 3rd and 5 it seemed like they had to pass. 3rd possession 1st down-LJ for 0 2nd down-LJ for 5 3rd and 5-Sack and fumble, recovered by KC Same thing here-they tried running it twice, and still were in a non 3rd and short type situation, and the passing down went for the sack. A draw might have worked once or twice against the Colts like the Patriots game, but it won't work all day in this type of situation. 4th possession (from the 9 after the INT by Law) 1st down-LJ for 6 2nd down-LJ for 1 3rd down-this is where Green trips and loses 3-it's hard to tell how their play would have worked from the 2 because it never started-they were moderately successful running the ball on those two plays, but might have not gotten in with another run. This sort of pattern continues mostly throughout. Even in the 4th quarter, the Chiefs are still mixing in the run with the pass, but the run is not working at all, so they are starting to pass more and more. With less than 6 minutes to go, they finally have to abandon the run, and Green gets sacked 3 times on the drive with Mathis stripping the ball from Green on the last one (which is 2 forced fumbles by Mathis already just in the playoffs with the Baltimore game the next week). The teams didn't abandon the run on any drive-they just couldn't run the ball several times on any drive (which is what is needed to get to 30 carries) because every time teams would run the ball more than once or twice, they would find themselves in a 3rd and long situation. Will that happen with the Bears? I'm not sure. I feel like the same pattern will develop to that of the NE game though. Jones/Benson will break some 20 yard runs, and will then get stopped for little gain on the next run, which will mean that at some point Grossman will simply have to beat the Colts on the slants and crossing routes, and probably not the deep ball consistently.

I really like that shirt especially-if the Colts win, I may have to try to buy one of those.

Oh thank god. Assume that Colts will wear white & white? Yeah, the Colts will wear their white uniforms-although I'd love to see all the casual fans watching the Super Bowl who would have no idea what was really going on if the Colts wore their blues :D

But was it the right call? According to the rules, yes. But that doesn't make it any easier to digest. I think the rules should be amended to give more discretion to the officials. I would agree-make it like the face mask penalty, where there are 5 yard and 15 yard versions, and then it would work better IMO.

I bet coaches have watched tape, but the players haven't. Of course, unless you're somebody like Peyton Manning. Most people watch one recent game of an opponent to get game film. I know a couple years before a playoff game, Peyton stepped that up a little bit and watched every game his opponent had played the entire season. I'm sure he will do that this time with 2 weeks to prepare for the Bears. I bet both teams will watch the film from Sunday tomorrow, and then practice will start the next day.

It was still a ticky-tack penalty. Ticky-tack suggest a subjective call though-like pass interference where the guy barely touches the player, and so it can technically be called that but it really shouldn't. The rules on a blow to the head have it as an objective call-if any contact is made to the head, no matter how small, the referees have to call it. If the referees see it, they simply do not have the discretion to not make that call, no matter if the rule is ridiculous or not.

It seems pretty likely that Cedeno will not make the final roster at this point unless something changes during the spring.

Over the course of the season, including the playoffs, youd o not believe that the Bears have proven themselves to be a better team than the Colts? I do. Not that that brings in match ups or anything. May I ask how the Bears have proved to be a better team? Record against Common Opponents-Colts-6-0, Bears-3-2 That's just one statistic. Now, I am not one of these Colts fans who believe that the Colts are better than the Bears-they are not. This is going to be a very even game, although I do think there are some matchups the Colts can exploit. I certainly do not think though that the Bears have proven that they are better than the Colts, and am wondering what your evidence is for that.

PS2, PS3, XBox, XBox 360, PSP, GBA, Nintendo DS No Wii? get used to it Why on DS but not Wii? The motion control-my guess is that the studio waited to see if Wii would take off before putting the time in to developing a game just for that system and now don't have enough time before launch to do the development-I'm almost certain in 08 Wii will be on the list.

Most of the Colts fans are actually begging to be the underdog in this game, but it doesn't look like that will be possible. I think both teams will come in very focused though-they know that the job is not complete yet.

I actually think the Falcons are giving up too much in that scenario. Porter has very little trade value at this point even though he's talented. There are only certain teams that are willing to take on Moss. Atlanta also has to give up the number 10 pick Basically it's Vick and moving up 9 spots for Atlanta and getting Moss and Porter in return-that doesn't help Atlanta that much at all. I just don't see that particular deal working out.

That's a very valid point there, and I agree with it. The comment that Peyton is also very good at this is true-if the opponent doesn't adjust, the Colts will try to exploit what they feel is the weak link over and over and over again.

And I hope Hendry is right about Izturis. But, I'm very, very skeptical that Izturis will be any better with a bat than the worst SS's in the league. if he stays healthy & plays great defense, does it really matter what he hits? the sox & cards won the WS with guys who had .713 & .694 ops's respectively. Of course it matters. That black hole in the lineup has more of an impact than anything he does on defense, no matter how good his glove is. Those teams may have won with those shortstops, but it wasn't because of them. how many teams have won anything on the offense of their 8th place hitter? The Red Sox won in 2004 with a combined .833 OPS from the eighth spot in the order. I'd be much happier with that than a .700 OPS. That is true-of course part of that was due to a strange batting order. Their 2 spot had a 765 OPS, and their 7 spot had a 749 OPS. Still better than anything the Cubs will throw out this year, but their order all the way down was not as stacked as an 833 in the 8 spot would have one believe.

The difference between Rex and a typical game manager is that Rex completed multiple big time passes. A game manager is just supposed to complete short passes and not screw up. Rex provides an opportunity for big plays. True he does have that ability to go long but they ran the ball enough to keep the game out of his hands. That pass that the Bear WR made a wonderful play for a TD on should have been an interception. Somebody else wrote something very wise about the "should have been an interception" theory. It just doesn't hold true. The only time you can say that is when a guy is standing still and it hits him in the chest. DBacks are not receivers. QBs can take risks because they know their WR are the better receivers back there, and the vast majority of the time, the pass will end up complete or incomplete. There's no reason why that "should have been an int". It wasn't, and the only way it could have been is if the DB made an amazing play. I don't think you can assum players should be able to make amazing plays. IMO, any average corner knocks that ball down. Any good corner picks that ball off. It would not have required an "amazing" play to be an INT. At the same time, Grossman was going for the jugular on that play, and if it hadn't worked out the Saints would have had the ball deep in their own territory, and that probably wouldn't have worked out for them either. Grossman was not good yesterday, but he wasn't awful either.

Other then of course that originally Soriano insisted on not being moved from position to position as a condition of his signing? It's the same thing as the leadoff spot-it may be an evil (although the leadoff spot thing is still debated on if it's an evil or not) but it's an ok concession to make. Now that Soriano says that he is willing to play CF, it makes it even better.

If they cover kicks the way they did yesterday, Hester will have 3 returns for TD. Yeah-the Colts kick return has been spotty all year. They did better the first two weeks by putting starters back on ST, but they were horrible last night. I have to imagine they might do something like the Seahawks and simply give up good field position to not let Hester break one. Punts I'm a little worried about as well-Hunter kicks it about as far as any kicker in the league, but that can cause a long return as well (Hunter had 3 punts of 58, 58, 56 that had 10+ yard returns last night). Hester getting a head of steam behind him is not something I want to see, so I could see them working with Hunter on trying to punt it out of bounds.