That wasn’t one of the better played Super Bowl I’ve ever seen, though I have to admit that the first half did have pretty much everything—six turnovers, Vinitari missing a field goal, a botched extra point, a KR for a touchdown…
Rex Grossman didn’t exactly cover himself with glory (three turnovers will do that to a man), but it should be noted that Grossman had more yards and more completions than Joe Montana had in his first Super Bowl.
What the game boiled down to was that the Bears defense couldn’t stop the Colts when they had to. The Colts held the ball for essentially the last four minutes of the first half and the first 7:30 of the second half. That’s not very good for what’s supposed be one of the best defenses in the league.
The Bears were also outcoached. They were so concerned about the Colts’ deep-strike capability that they were dropping the first layer of pass coverage back too far; Manning took advantage of that by finding the underneath receiver, who was usually wide open. The Bears never adjusted to that by tightening up the underneath coverage. The other thing that opening up the short passing game for Peyton did was it took away the Bears’ pass rush. While Manning is more mobile than he has been in the past, he’s still not Steve Young or Michael Vick. But the Bears pretty much never got to him (one sack late in the game).
And as for MVP… Peyton didn’t play poorly—he didn’t make too many mistakes—but he didn’t exactly light it up (247 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT isn’t a bad game, but it’s hardly Peyton-esque, either). The case could be made for Bob Sanders being the MVP, but for my money, the MVP was the Colts offensive line.