Still walkin' on air

I'd be remiss if I didn't dispute the claim of a "super lame" Super Bowl by one of my fellow staffers. At the same time, I won't be too hard on him as a Bears fan. We just have a difference of opinion about professional sports. In fact, my loyalties in professional sports put me in direct opposition to all things Chicago:
Packers over Bears
Reds over Cubs
Tigers over White Sox
Pacers over Bulls
Red Wings over Blackhawks
But enough about that city of losers...

PACKERS WIN THE SUPER BOWL!!!

This was an awesome Super Bowl. I don't care about Fergie or Christina or any commercials -- except little Darth Vader and the Dorito finger-licking incident.

My favorite team took the Vince Lombardi Trophy back to the city where Lombardi made his name. It doesn't get better than that.

How did I bury the lead almost 100 words into this blog?

For that matter, how did it take me over three days to write this blog? That one, I can explain.

It took me three days to gather my thoughts and really believe it.

As I'm sure all you Colts fans out there can relate to the surreal and exhausting experience it is to have your favorite team win the Super Bowl. You go into every season with hopes that your team is the one, but you understand that it's unlikely, no matter how good your team is.

One team is a winner at the end of the year; the other 31 are losers. Your team is a loser most years.

This Packer team had the deck stacked against it even more, though. Fifteen players on injured reserve left them floundering at 3-3 at one point.

Then at 8-6, they had to win out to even make the playoffs.

And win out they did. For six games and a month and a half, they won every game. They only trailed twice in that stretch, and they outscored their opponents 176-96. Not one team in that stretch won fewer than 10 regular season games.

But the Super Bowl came, and I still had my doubts. It was the Steelers. If you watched the reports, these guys had a combined 10,000 championship rings on the squad. Additionally, they are a team that, even when they're down, is never out of a game.

They showed that Sunday, crawling back from a 21-3 deficit and three big turnovers to scare the bejesus out of me down the stretch.

But my boys held on, in spite of another rash of injuries. The final horn sounded, the confetti rained down, Aaron Rodgers said, "I'm going to Disney World!" and things became right in my football world.

Only I really didn't feel like I thought I should. I was exhausted and not entirely sure it was happening.

So this week has been more of a slow burn to me. I'm quite sure it's real this time, but maybe my excitement has been tempered by a few more important things -- my child, my wife, a mortgage, debt, an ice storm, a job -- but I'm still loving this.

Maybe it's just that this time, I'm only floating a couple of inches off the ground.

But I'm still floating, and it feels great.

Packers win the Super Bowl. It has a nice ring to it.