The Chicago Bears (da Bears!) and the Indianapolis Colts (formerly of Baltimore, as any Baltimore fan will tell you, ad nauseam, until, blood-sugar levels low, you seek divine intervention just to get the poor schlub to zip his yap) won the right to face each other in Miami, host of its ninth Super Bowl, in two weeks, on Sunday, February 4th.

While the Bears dispatched the New Orleans Saints, this year's feel good team of the year, with relative ease and after a little ill-conceived provocation from all-world Reggie "watch me do somersaults!" Bush, the Colts played what may have been the best Conference Championship game ever, or at least in the top five of all-time, easy.

To appreciate the tension associated with the game played in the RCA Dome in Indianapolis requires an understanding of only one thing, that of expectations built so lofty, so grand, by one's peers, by the media, and by the public that they become a burden of literally painful proportions, expectations that have dogged you your whole career, professional and collegiate, from all the so-called experts who first whispered and eventually shouted from the rooftops, "All that skill and he still can't win the big one, he can't step up when it's all on the line and matters most."

That is what life had been like for Peyton Manning throughout much of his college career at Tennessee (he never did beat Florida) and for all of his time in the pros (all those superhero like numbers and no Super Bowl.) Manning has been the NFL's Sisyphus for much of his seven years in the league, working every season to push, pull, and carry his team to greatness, setting individual records at a boggling pace, playing his position with poise and near perfection week after week, until, ultimately, the rock rolls back down the hill and Manning trudges doggedly after it, determined that next year he'll reach the top.

More likely than not, particularly over the last few years, the team that seemed to be waiting for Manning and his Colts, waiting to derail those best laid plans, waiting to push Manning completely out of his comfort zone, was the New England Patriots, the closest thing (heartbreakingly) the 21st century has to a sporting dynasty, led by their pinch-faced, hoodie-wearing savant of a head coach, Bill Belichick, their diamond in the rough, plucked from the bazillionth round of the draft quarterback, the one with the highest winning percentage of ANY quarterback in the modern post-season era, Tom Brady, and their monstrous defense, built to smash offenses in the mouth hard and often, early in the game, turning many a high-vaulted scoring juggernaut in nothing more than a quivering puddle of goo.

And, as if reading off the same script, the Pats and the Colts played their parts to perfection for almost an entire half, the Pats getting all the bounces and big plays, the Colts seeming to fall completely to pieces to a team that was simply better and more poised, not individually but as a unit, and that, anyone will tell you, is what football is all about. The Colts found themselves down by 18, 21-3, at home, to their nemesis, and you could hear televisions across the country flipping around to see what else was on; we'd all seen this before, you see.

But then, from nowhere, Manning and the Colts started to pull together. Traditionally Patriot-bounces went the other way and suddenly it was linemen for the Colts that were scoring touchdowns. Manning was his miraculous best, Joseph Addai and Dominc Rhodes burst through holes in the Pats defense the QEII could have sailed through, and the much-ridiculed Colts defense shut down the Pats offense.

The rest of the game was what everybody wanted, a slugfest, with two heavyweights trading punches with each other, touchdowns and field goals, until the Colts found themselves ahead, 38-34, with 54 seconds left and Brady marshalling his troops.

On the sideline, Manning sat, head down, hands squeezed together so tightly his knuckles were white. He didn't watch, couldn't really; he'd been here before, had felt victory ripped from his hands, had watched Brady and Belichick celebrate at his expense. So he sat and he prayed and he wished and he squeezed.

And when Marlin Jackson picked off the normally cold-blooded, quick-witted, sure-handed Brady, Manning raised his head and smiled.

He looked like a man released from a terrible burden, trite as that may sound. A weight really had been lifted from his shoulders, and Manning could see the possibilities unfolding before him.

Peyton Manning and his Colts are going to the Super Bowl, and this year, maybe, just maybe, that damned rock won't roll back down to the bottom before the job is done.