I did not watch you, Peyton Manning, but I am a big fan

I really wanted Indianapolis to win this year, because I genuinely like Peyton Manning and love the Colts' style of football and, aside from the Titans, the Colts are my favorite team. But I did not watch the game. I do not watch Super Bowls. This started in 1987, when my favorite team was The Denver Broncos. They had just pulled off "The Drive" which I had seen at my cousins' house (while wearing my No. 7 Broncos outfit, complete with shoulder pads and helmet), so I was feeling pretty good about our chances. And they got beat. Bad. Okay, next year, Broncos again, still wearing the uniform, and they get hammered even worse than the previous year. Good lord, it was awful. I ended up hiding in the closet of my grandparents' bedroom, crying my eyes out. My grandfather thought it was because we had made a five dollar bet on the outcome of the game and he kept coming into the closet to tell me that I did not have to pay the five dollars. And that was it; no more Super Bowls. On that particular Sunday, I usually watched whatever marathon TBS was airing, a lot of The Andy Griffith Show and Leave it to Beaver, and I didn't much miss the big game. It didn't help that, for the next nine years, the team I was rooting for did not win the Super Bowl (though my parents called me into the room so I could watch Scott Norwood kick a potential game-winning field goal for the Bills and I would be happy, and then, wide right, and I ran screaming out the room, feeling like my parents had abused me for fun). And, yes, Denver then won twice in a row, but I had outgrown the uniform and didn't feel like watching the possibility of them losing again. The two games I have watched since then, Tennessee/St. Louis and St. Louis/New England, were incredible games and they were fun to watch, regardless of the outcome. But those were the exceptions to the rule. This Sunday, my wife and I made our Super Bowl feast, grilled hot dogs and cheese dip and fried zucchini, and we ended up watching a rerun of Law and Order: CI (not even the good episodes with Goren, but a Logan episode with Chris Noth). When I learned that the Colts had pretty much clinched the win, we watched the last four minutes of the game and learned that Tony Dungy never swears and that was nice to hear. So congratulations, Colts, though I feel bad for Rex Grossman.