Colts 29, Bearsss 17

One of the kickass things about watching the Super Bowl alone in your parents' basement (shut up, how dare you judge me) is taking in the absurd local news postgame coverage. If you were lucky enough to flip on our beloved NBC5, you caught some pretty good stuff, including:

-A reporter (who happened to be former Bear Dan Jiggets's daughter) live from the completely empty Soldier Field parking lot where people had been tailgating during the game but left before the report

-Peggy Kuczinski's walk-and-interview with Rex Grossman who was glancing around the whole time, clearly trying to shake her

-A live report from some random family's house party in Park Ridge

-A live report from a bowling alley in Hyde Park

There was also plenty of "Woo! Bears! Wait 'til next year" sentiment at the various locales. In fact, it seemed the predominant mood. Not to be a downer, but maybe someone should inform these people how Super Bowl losers historically fare the next season.

Anyway, the best part of the postgame coverage was a scrolling fan feedback thingy at the bottom of the screen. Comcast Sports had some kind of live chat or message board going, and NBC5 had the comments scrolling continuously during the postgame coverage. Not surprisingly, most of the comments were about Rex Grossman, and they often alternated between "fire Rex! Prince would have played better!" and "Rex stilll the man Rex is R qb! -marge, oak lawn."

There was also plenty of "Play Orton!/Griese!" (or as one person spelled it, "Grease"), as well as calls to "bring back McMahon!/Ditka!/Sweetness!" (ummmm.....) along with some general throwback sentiments ("85 bears 4 eva!"). I think my favorite pro-Rex comment was the foolproof defense, "QUIT BLAMING REX. LIKE YOU COULD DO ANY BETTER. THEY TRIED THERE BEST." And of course, the bag of "Train Rex"/"Wreck Rex"/"Gross-man" puns was opened, emptied, and emptied some more.

People also used the opportunity to display their baseball loyalties ("Bears just big Cubs--always wait til next year" "we still love the bears south side represent. go sox"), to propose to Devin Hester, and to demand Lovie Smith's and/or Ron Turner's termination.

Anyway, as much as I've ridiculed the local media for the overblown coverage and the Chicago fans for caring way too much about a friggin' football game, I'll admit it's made for some pretty entertaining viewing--if, for nothing else, its ease of ridicule. Unfortunately, it won't extend a few more days for a parade, but I'm sure we'll still get plenty of coverage of the team plane landing, the team bus pulling into the station, and, quite fathomably, individual players followed home by reporters and adoring fans.

Super Bowl XXXXI was fun while it lasted, but I guess it just wasn't the Bears' year. However, that shouldn't overshadow who the real winners were--African American coaches and capitalism.