A couple of things come to mind after watching the Super Bowl (XLI) - They don't make football like they used to, and say what you like about him, but Prince can still play guitar.

The Colts dominated Super Blah XLI.  Period.  Manning managed, and passed his imperial chokiness crown to Rex Grossman, who is no Jim McMahon.  Who was no Terry Bradshaw.  Who was no Roger Staubach (yes, I live in Texas, so the Cowboys are a requirement, like driving a pickup, having a good dog, and being armed 99.999% of the time, even if with only a sharp wit and an accent).  I bring up 'The Dodger' because if you go to you tube and watch old vids, you'll see that quarterbacks used to play, they scrambled, hit, and ran.  They ran for yards.  For touchdowns.  Nowadays they're mostly overpriced primadonnas that couldn't move during an earthquake.

When I was a kid, and we played football (again, in Texas that was pretty much all the time.  Yes, stereotypes exist for a reason), we identified with the team our fathers watched, and that was usually the Cowboys.  Roger, the Pretty Boy Golden Richards, The Human Ball Magnet Drew Pearson, Legs of Steel Robert Newhouse and his claimed 44 inch thighs (or was it 34?  Either way, the man was all legs).

In those days there were no endorsement deals for sneakers or video games and individual players were known by the company they kept - their teammates.  They had honor.  Loyalty.  Free Agency, the corruption of team for individualized greed, didn't exist.  Gods of the field, like Walter Payton - the most impressive running back, maybe player, to ever set foot on the field - exemplified loyalty to those around him.  We hated the Bears.  They sucked.  But we didn't hate them because they sucked so much (We loved the Bucs.  They were just so awful we couldn't help it) as because they failed to provide a team around Sweetness, because his truly epic efforts seemed wasted.  We watched, though, and wished for him to go to another team, even if it was the Eagles, Vikings, Redskins, just so we could see him win.  Instead, he showed us that perseverance and loyalty eventually pay off.

Talking about my heroes, Roger, Walter, Tony Dorsett, and yes, Joe Greene, Alan Page, Bradshaw, even Montana, reminds me that they stood as remarkable men as much as players - classy, well dressed, respectful, confident, well spoken, low key - off the field.  Representative of their team, the city that team lived in , their own hometown, their parents, coach, family, teammates, America.  In a world of T.O.s and other assorted morons, maybe I shed a tear for that extinct dignity the most.