As the regular season wore down, how many really felt Indy and Chicago would be in the Super Bowl? This doesn't include their own fan bases, of course.
Chicago was easily playing like wildcard team - not one that won its division by a wide margin and held the #1 seed in the NFC. Rex continued to hurt his team and the defense was starting to show signs of problems.
Indy couldn't play defense to save their lives - giving up huge numbers on the ground. Manning was starting to look less than Manning-like.
And here they are, headed south for the winter. Why?
The two areas that caused each team the most pain stepped up.
For Chicago that was Rex and for Indy that was their defense. Against Seattle Rex wasn't great but I'd consider him good. In the 2nd half vs. the Saints, I saw the Rex from earlier this season. That TD drive when the Saints were within 4 sealed it.
In the first two playoff games for Indy - they had no offense. One would think for sure that would've done them in. Yet suddenly a defense appeared - vaulting them to 2 wins and pitting them against the Pats. For most of the first half, again Indy had no offense. The defense did give up a pair of scoring drives - yet did enough to keep Manning and the offense within reach should they ever wake up. Finally they did and the 2nd half was a fun back-and-forth battle. In the end, it was the defense that stepped up knocking away a 3rd down pass to give Indy the ball that resulted in the winning score. And it was the defense that intercepted a pass that ended Brady's attempt at a comeback.
A pair of teams that most all but wrote off at the end of the season - doing battle in a couple weeks. Should be one helluva game.
