Get No Kick From Champagne

I get no kick from champagne (or it cocaine---I can never remember lyrics).

But I do get a kick out of pundits trying to predict football games. Last week, after the Colts edged by the Chiefs, with Manning making 3 turnovers, everyone (at least in this area---so very close to Baltimore) said that the Colts couldn't make the same mistakes and win in Baltimore.

First, the Ravens defense was far stouter. You could easily claim it was a top-3 defense. McNair had infused the team with some offense. And the Colts defense had a fluke of a day, which couldn't be repeated.

Colts fans figured it was Peyton who was having a fluke of a day, and that he would turn around, and light up the Ravens, cutting down on his mistakes, and basically show why he's been the MVP of the league and the first choice QB of many a fantasy football owner (though Peyton's been more conservative these past two years).

Instead, who would have thought that the result would be pretty much a repeat of last week? Peyton turning the ball over. McNair, doing his best Trent Green, also turning the ball over.

Indeed, the fourth quarter stood at a taut 12-6. That's six field goals in all, folks. All the Ravens needed was a good drive, or an interception, and they could squeak out a 13-12 win. The new look Billick, delegating more to his assistants, infused with an unflappable, experienced quarterback, and self-appointed genius, was ready to knock the Colts out.

Of course, the game had much more meaning to Baltimore fans, much more so than either of the teams playing. It was some 22 years ago that the owner packed up the team and sent to the Indianapolis and not only took the team, but the name, to their new home. Baltimore fans would have to wait ten years plus until 1995 before Modell moved the Browns from Cleveland to Baltimore. They would leave the name "Browns" behind, for future franchises in Cleveland to reclaim the name and pick up what is, for my money, the best name ever for a Baltimore team--the Ravens, named after the famous Edgar Allan Poe poem, he, a famous Baltimorean. Indeed, the three ravens that serve as mascots are Edgar, Allan, and Poe.

As much as long suffering Baltimore fans wanted the Ravens to administer a Colts beatdown, the players, who were probably in high school (or younger) when the retreat to Indianapolis took place, simply saw it as a game. All the history, all the animosity, all the enmity didn't matter.

And so it came down to kickers. In a game where fans grimace when it comes to kickers (even if the sport is named football), Adam Vinatieri booted 5 field goals, to Matt Stover's 2. In the end, Colts fans may point to this off-season acquisition as its most important. Vinatieri, who had a hand in key runs for three of the Patriots Super Bowl championships, had left chilly New England for the somewhat warmer climes of Indianapolis.

And of course, with this win, it's possible, with a Pats win, that Vinatieri will kick against his previous team, and the Colts would face an opponent that has given them fits in the past.

And wouldn't it be ironic if it was the Colts defense that won it for them?

What would the pundits say then? Maybe they should analyze games instead of predict them.