Soap Box

It's early on Sunday morning in the hours before daylight on Super Bowl Sunday and I'm sitting here contemplating that empty feeling I always get after the last game of the year is played and how it will be seven long months before football season will start again.

Every year I try to cram in as many football games as my schedule will allow. Three pro games on Sunday, Monday Night football, Thursday Night Football, all-day college football on Saturday and the various and sundry other games that pop up on the off days during the season.

I was sitting in the Georgia Dome the year my Tennessee Titans were one yard short of forcing Super Bowl XXXIV into overtime against the St. Louis Rams, and every year I'm rooting for my guys to get back to another Super Bowl and pick up that yard.

When it comes to college, I'm one of those VFL (Vol For Life) guys, Tennessee Volunteers, that is, and pull for any team in the Southeastern Conference against any out of conference team.

I love the football roller coaster leading up to the NCAA National Championship Game, the nonstop bowl games and the NFL getting ready to go in to the playoffs, wall-to-wall football exhilarating husbands and peeving wives all over the country as the easy chair in front of the television becomes the most important four square feet on earth, as men the nation over rant and rave, showering the floor with potato chip crumbs and missing the trash with pull tops and twist off bottle caps.

And then after the NCAA title game and the NFL conference title games it all gets boiled to one solitary game between football fans and a long offseason.

Guys, after today it's over for another year. I'm kind of a mediocre roundball fan and was an avid baseball fan until they went on strike a few years ago and the downtime kinda broke the fascination. I love NASCAR, but alas, it's only one cup race a week.

So, after today, I am steeling myself for football withdrawals, cold turkey.

I am looking forward to the new playoff system the NCAA is instituting next year, of course, as in all things concerning the NCAA, we'll just have to wait and see how well it works out, but hopefully it will be fairer than the ranking system they've been using for so long.

I anticipate a great Super Bowl game later on today and feel that this year the two best teams in the NFL are facing off at Meadowlands, and by the time you read this, the game will be history and I'm wondering how I'll view my words in retrospect Monday Morning, but here goes.

I do truly like the Seattle Seahawks, have for many years since the old Jim Zorn days and think Russell Wilson is a credit to the game on field and off field and deserves to be in the big 'un.

But as a part-time resident of Colorado and a full time resident of Tennessee, there is no way I can go against Peyton Manning, the only quarterback with a street named after him on the campus of the University of Tennessee. He's our boy no matter what uniform he's wearing.

I believe Peyton Manning has the greatest football mind of any player in my lifetime and that upon finishing his playing career, has an extremely bright future as a coach, should he so choose.

I think the most important thing for the Denver offense is for the Bronco line to protect Peyton from one of the best defenses I've ever seen. The Hawks defense is ferocious, hungry, with a lot of swagger and the talent to back it up.

So, I'm taking Denver by six, and there you have it, knowing full well that I will either be viewed as a wise football forecaster or a dunce who knows nothing at all on Monday morning.

But what do I know? I'm just a fiddle player.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels​