REAR ENTRIES: Super Bowl Edition

CURSE LIFTED: The trend had been that if your team lost to the Buccaneers, you weren’t going to win the Super Bowl. It was statistically insignificant, but it gave sportscasters something to say when the Bucs beat some powerhouse team, not that that had been an issue lately. But it became one when the Bucs beat the Saints in week 16 of this year after Garrett Hartley (who, right this very minute, is plowing a girl he doesn’t love) missed a gimme 37-yard field goal at the end of regulation. So now without this or the cold weather curse or the kickoff return thing, what are brain dead analysts going to talk about when they cover Bucs games? Won’t someone please think of the analysts?!?

DUNGY SHOULD STICK TO VISITING PRISONS: Though I was rooting for the Colts, I didn’t want to predict their victory because I knew the Saints had a good team and wasn’t sure how the Colts’ defensive line would hold up if the Saints went on a couple long drives. And I’m a guy who shoots his mouth off and any opportunity. Tony Dungy, on the other hand, is well-known for being reserved and politically correct (except toward the queers) and he went on the record a couple days ago with relative bombast.

“I think they’re going to be so far ahead that people are going to say, ‘Oh, ho-hum, he played a good game, they won by two scores, the Colts won their second championship,’ ” Dungy said of Manning on Thursday. “He’s going to have those rings Sunday night. I don’t think it’s going to be close.”

He didn’t count on Peyton’s receivers dropping critical passes, Peyton making a poor decision on his interception, and Sean Payton having GIANT BUFFALO BALLS when it came to playcalling and taking chances. I applaud Dungy having the fortitude to make a call instead of just saying it would be a good game, but “I don’t think it’s going to be close” is bulletin board material for the Saints. As a Colts fan, he should have kept his yap shut.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN: I don’t have a link for this. I was just thinking back to the 2006 season when Drew Brees was allowed to walk away from the Chargers because they didn’t think his shoulder would heal and they had drafted Philip Rivers anyway. Jon Gruden, who gushed over Brees that year at every opportunity, very likely would have given one of his children for the Glazers to make Brees an offer to come to Tampa, but it never happened. Instead, the Saints got Brees and the Bucs played that year with Chris Simms, Bruce Gradkowski and Tim Rattay.

/sad slide-whistle sound