Blanco is back on top

Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts are on a mission to Miami for Super Bowl XLI and beating every team they faced this season isn’t a bad way to start. The blue horseshoes have already galloped over the Denver Broncos and pummeled the New England Patriots on the road and now they face a gunfight with newcomer Tony Romo and the Cowboys in Dallas.

Nobody in the Hoosier State wants to win the big one more than Manning. After failing to do so with the Tennessee Volunteers in college, the quarterback, who pimps cell phones and chases grocery store clerks for autographs in his spare time, doesn’t want to finish his career ala-Dan Marino.

While he has already cemented his place in the Hall of Fame as one of the all-time greats, Manning wants to add at least one championship to his resume before playing out his days as one of the most immobile pocket-passers alongside Bernie Kosar, Steve Grogan, and Drew “What’s My Name Again” Bledsoe.

The only thing that I can’t believe is that Colts needed a “Wide Right” from another Buffalo kicker to beat the Bills at home. While they aren’t winning games in the same dominating fashion as last year, the Colts are still looking strong as the only team in the history of the National Football League to post back-to-back 9-0 starts to the season. That’s pretty good, ne?

The Chicago Bears are looking pretty good too, but their signal caller has looked a little schizophrenic with some serious ups and downs in the past couple of weeks. His first poor showing was against the Cardinals in Arizona, but Rex Grossman regained his fine form after the bye week hammered the San Francisco 49ers.

The Bears looked to maul the Dolphins at Soldier Field but suffered their first loss of the season when Miami’s defense upstaged Orange jersey night in the Windy City with a 31-13 upset.

Just when everyone wanted to write off the Monsters of the Midway as pretenders, they regained their swagger by chopping the Giants down to size in the Meadowlands to improve to 8-1.

Da Bears are still favorites to win the NFC, but that now looks more by default as the Seahawks are playing without their starting quarterback and juggernaut Shaun Alexander. While Wallace has performed well, he has ways to go before being “Super” and despite showing flashes, Mo Morris has not come close to filling Alexander’s shoes.

With John Blanco, Jon Cramer, and Will Hunter within a couple of games of each other, the action between our prognosticators is almost as exciting as on the gridiron. Blanco regained the top spot among the hometown pickers with a 10-6 record last week to improve to 93-51 overall, while Cramer fell to second place at 91-53 following his sub-par 7-9 showing.

Hunter has been solid all season and his consistency has him just a game back of Cramer at 90-54. While the trio is battling for the bragging rights, Keith Nabors is just three games behind at 87-57. The terror from Tinian went against the grain to gain some ground this time around by choosing the 49ers over the Seahawks. We’ll find out of his gamble pays off on Sunday, er, Monday morning.