As this calendar year winds down I'm starting to reflect on just how much has happened during this year 2007. It seems like such a long time ago now, but I started this blog back in January, and my first post was about how miffed I was that the Chargers were upset by the Patriots in the Playoffs. At that point 2007 was just getting started, and none of us knew what this year held in store for us. Looking back on it all, there were some sports moments in 2007 that I really enjoyed, but just about all of them ended disappointingly.

Let's start with football. I experienced something this year that I never have before: I got to follow my team, the Chicago Bears, from the first game of the season all the way to the Super Bowl. I was surrounded by co-workers who only wanted to talk about the Cowboys and Redskins, but I always stood up for my Bears in football discussions. Once the Playoffs started one of my friends told me that they'd never make it to the Super Bowl with Rex Grossman at quarterback, but the Bears did me proud by proving all the doubters wrong. Unfortunately, the Bears lost to the Colts in the Super Bowl. It wasn't an ideal ending, but the season had been a great ride and there was reason to be hopeful about the future. As it's turned out, the Bears this season have been hurt by injuries and a dismal offense. They're going to finish with a losing record, and it's clear that several changes need to be made if this team is going to return to contention. The best thing you can say about the 2007 Bears was that they beat the Packers twice.

Super Bowl XLI now looks like a missed opportunity that the Bears may not get again for some time, but interestingly enough, it was also the biggest highlight of 2007 for me. I figured if the Bears were going to lose, it might as well be to a team that deserved the title. The Indianapolis Colts were most certainly that. Despite my team's loss, I was happy for the Colts. After having a very good team for so many years they finally got their hands on the Lombardi Trophy, and they did it with class. It was also nice to see the deluded New England fans who liked to say that Peyton Manning would never win the big one and who just couldn't accept the idea that he wasn't a born loser have to eat their words. I'll admit, that part made me feel good too.

In addition to the Bears' struggles, this NFL season has been pretty miserable for me. All five teams I hate (Patriots, Packers, Steelers, Giants and Cowboys) are in the Playoffs. The Patriots are close to going undefeated, but they've had a dark cloud of contempt surrounding them from day one. I'm forced to root for one of those teams I hate in their last game of the season in hopes that the evil Patriots won't pull it off. The Detroit Lions, a true underdog that would've made a great feel-good story, started out the season 6-2 and now could finish with a losing record. The only hope left for lovers of underdog franchises is the Cleveland Browns, who still haven't clinched a Playoff spot. Ultimately though, the only teams that look like they have a realistic shot of winning anything this year are teams whose fanbases have experienced the top of the hill recently enough that they have no underdog appeal. In the end I think it's likely that several of us will be picking a team to root for by figuring out which one we hate the least.

Then there was basketball. As a Bulls fan I was pretty excited when my team swept the defending champion Miami Heat in the first round of the Playoffs. The Heat were treated like a team with some magical formula for stepping up when it counted all season, but the Bulls dispelled that notion in four games. Having followed the Bulls through the post-Jordan years I was proud of those guys. They nearly got swept in the next round by the Pistons, but they hustled their way to two wins before bowing out in Game 6. It would've been nice to see them go farther in the Playoffs, but considering the progress they'd made it was nothing to be ashamed of. Like the Bears, it gave us fans a lot of hope for next season.

We're about two months into "next season" now and things haven't gone as expected. The Bulls have gotten off to slow starts each of the past three seasons, but they've always managed to get it together before too long. This time though, they've stretched out their poor start long enough that Scott Skiles has been fired as head coach and most people already consider this season to be a lost cause. I haven't completely given up on this Bulls team, but I think it's safe to say that even if they do turn things around and make the Playoffs they don't have what it takes to go very far once they get there. It's sad to see a team that started out as a favorite to win the East possibly headed to the draft lottery.

As for the rest of the basketball world, the San Antonio Spurs won their fourth NBA Championship in 2007. The Spurs are one of the most nondescript teams in the NBA. They win championships, but they don't inspire much emotion. The Phoenix Suns, a team that has been on the doorstep of NBA supremacy in recent years, had a chance to beat them in the second round of the Playoffs, but the Spurs ultimately prevailed. It left the Spurs as the only dominant team in the Playoffs and the almost inevitable champion. While I'm not a big LeBron James fan, I was rooting for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, since they'd never been there and the Spurs had. It wasn't even close, as the Spurs swept. When the Spurs won their first NBA Championship in 1999 it was exciting, as several players got their first rings and no former ABA team had ever even made it to the NBA Finals. Every championship they've won since then has been completely anticlimactic. It's like watching a computer win a chess game against a human opponent. This season the Spurs are again looking like the best in the West, while the team that's stepped it up in the East is the Celtics, from the dreaded city of Boston. Out of nowhere they acquired two All Stars in Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, giving their ever-obnoxious fans something else to boast about. The Pistons and Magic right now are looking like our only hopes not to have to see them in the NBA Finals.

Of course, there was still the greatest game in the world, baseball. 2007 brought me higher hopes than usual in baseball, only to end with me watching them get crushed successively. First there were my Cubs. They hadn't won the World Series since 1908, but all season they showed flashes of brilliance that gave the optimist in me hope the it could finally be "the year." They made the Playoffs with a mediocre 85-77 record, but as the Cardinals had proven the year before, just getting into the Playoffs is the important thing. Once you're in, anything can happen. After the Cubs fought their way into the postseason, it was as if someone suddenly cut off their supply of "heart" just before they faced the Diamondbacks in the Divisional Series. They seemed completely uninspired throughout the series, and the Diamondbacks swept. In a matter of days all the optimism among Cub fans had turned to disgust.

With the Cubs out of the picture, I decided to pull for another team that had been waiting a long time for "the year": the Cleveland Indians. They hadn't won the World Series since 1948, and they had beaten the hated New York Yankees in the first round. Unlike the Cubs, the Indians had tied for their league's best record, and they looked like they had a real shot at winning the World Series. They went up against another evil Boston team, the Red Sox. They managed to take a 3-1 lead in the series despite some struggles from their best starters, and it seemed as if destiny was on their side. Then it all came crashing down. The Red Sox destroyed them in the next three games to win the pennant and deprive the baseball world of a potentially great story. It didn't help that many members of the irksome "Red Sox Nation" showed a complete lack of class in victory.

I was pretty upset about the Indians having their title as AL Champs usurped by that evil team from America's Most Annoying City, but there was still a glimmer of hope going into the World Series. The Colorado Rockies had spent most of the season playing at a level just below contention, but they'd finished on a tear that took them all the way to the NL pennant. They'd won 21 of their last 22 games going into the World Series, and they were the only team in the NL that looked like a legitimate threat against the superior American League. I loved watching their run, as I'd considered the Rockies one of my "side" teams for years. Unfortunately, they were just starting to cool down as the Red Sox were hitting their stride. The Red Sox swept, and for the first time in my life three teams I'd really embraced lost in one postseason.

I suppose the best way to sum up 2007 in sports would be a year that teased me with the hope of great things to come and ended up as a morass of Boston egotism and the same old teams winning. I'm just glad I've started to follow hockey, as it's been my only refuge in the midst of the disastrous sports scene we're currently surrounded by. I just hope 2008 is better than 2007 was. I don't know if I can take two consecutive years like this one.

As a Chicago Bears fan I'd figured for years that it'd be a while before I ever saw my team play in the Super Bowl. I was too young to follow the legendary 1985 season, and in most of the time I've been old enough to follow them their level of play has fallen somewhere between mediocre and bad. The odds would say that one of these years they had to become a serious contender again though, right? Well, that year finally came. In 2006 I got the experience of following my team from Week 1 all the way to the biggest game of them all. I was disappointed by the final result, but I'm thankful that it was a heck of a ride and that I got to be a part of it as a fan.

Some people want to place the blame for this loss on Rex Grossman. While he didn't have the best game of his career, he was hardly the horrible Rex that we've seen in other games this year. I don't blame him for the loss, because the Colts simply outplayed us in every way. With some losses there's something people can pull out as an excuse, like injuries, officiating or weather. Two of those may have been a factor in this game, but you'd be stretching to say the Bears lost a game they should have won. Since the Bears were doubted all year and were the underdog going up against the Colts, I'm proud of them just for staying in the game up until the last quarter.

I was quick to congratulate the Colts once the game ended. Congratulations to Tony Dungy for showing the world that a nice guy can finish first. For years we've seen football coaches as being tough-guy authoritarians, but Tony Dungy isn't like that. His players love him. They play hard not because they don't want to incur his wrath, but because they want to make him proud. Some critics have called him a coach who couldn't win the big one, but he proved once and for all that he's one of the best coaches in the game today. Unless you have no heart I don't see how you couldn't be happy for a guy like that.

I'm also happy for Peyton Manning. There are plenty of people who hate Manning. I could probably be one of them if I wanted to be. You could say he's a spoiled kid, you could say you're sick of all his commercials, but you couldn't honestly say that he isn't one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. We've heard about how he was the Dan Marino of our era, but now he has the championship many predicted he'd never win. I'm glad that we won't have to debate his greatness in the future because he never won a Super Bowl. Congratulations, Peyton.

Many people have pointed out that Manning's play hasn't been up to its usual level in the postseason, so the rest of the team certainly deserves credit for stepping up their game. Congratulations to the defense for stopping the run after doing so poorly in that area during the regular season. Congratulations to the receivers for making big catches when the team needed them. Congratulations to the defensive backs for coming up with interceptions that shifted the momentum. They frustrated me, but I'll give credit where it's due.

I was also proud of Lovie Smith for showing class in his post-game statements to reporters about the loss. He gave the Colts credit for playing a better game, showed pride in the fact that his team had gotten to their current level and looked forward to next year. No, it wasn't groundbreaking, but he said the best thing he possibly could've under the circumstances. I'm glad we have him as our coach.

I hope the Bears win it next season. However, the way things have gone these past two years I'm inclined to predict the Chargers. Let's take a look at the two most recent champions.

The 2004 Steelers had a dominant 15-1 season but lost in the AFC Championship game. In 2005 they had a streaky 11-5 season, but they got hot just before the Playoffs and carried it all the way to a Super Bowl victory.

The 2005 Colts started 13-0 and finished 14-2 but lost in the Divisional Playoffs. In 2006 they started 9-0 but were inconsistent in the second half, finishing 12-4. They got it together in the Playoffs though, and ended up winning the Super Bowl.

Which team dominated the regular season this year only to lose in the Playoffs? The San Diego Chargers. The similarity breaks down because the Steelers and Colts both were eliminated by the eventual champions while the Chargers weren't, but I won't be surprised if the 2007 Chargers have a very-good-but-not-great year and then get hot in the Playoffs and carry home the Lombardi Trophy.

Even though I would've loved for the Bears to stay undefeated in Super Bowl play, if you're going to lose you might as well lose to a worthy opponent. The Colts were certainly that, and they played like it on Sunday. Congratulations Colts, and better luck next year to my Bears.

By now we all know that the Bears and Colts are going to meet in the Super Bowl. I'm a Bears fan, so that should give you a pretty good hint about who I'm rooting for in the big game. This is exactly the matchup I wanted when we got down to the final four teams, so I'm pretty darn excited.

I was extremely nervous in the last minute of yesterday's Colts-Patriots game. We've been bombarded for years with the message that Tom Brady always comes through when the Patriots need to win, so I knew exactly how Peyton Manning felt while he was sitting on the bench face down. I had a knot in my stomach, and I'm not even a fan of either team. I can't imagine how the players and the fans of the teams felt. I'm just glad it turned out the way I wanted it to.

Though I'm (obviously) rooting for the Bears, I'm one of many who thinks the Colts are the clear favorite. I'd love to be wrong, though I'll be happy for the Colts if they do win. I'm really looking forward to the game, and it'll feel kind of weird to experience the "two weeks of hype" with my own team involved. I was too young to remember the 1985 team, though I know they were much better than this 2006 team. Whether the Bears win or lose though, I'm proud of them. I've followed them all season, and stayed loyal to them even when my co-workers teased me about being a Bears fan. They can talk about their NFC East teams, but I'm the one whose team is going to the Super Bowl. They told me that the Bears wouldn't win in the Playoffs with Rex Grossman at quarterback (and I'll even admit that I had my doubts), but my team proved the critics wrong. My biggest regret this season was not staying up to watch the Bears' comeback against Arizona on Monday Night Football. I had work the next day and needed some extra sleep, but if I'd known that something that big was going to happen I probably could've done without it for one more day. I'll never live that one down. The Bears have been doing unexpected things all year, so while my official prediction is that the Colts will win, I'm in no way ruling out the possibility of a Bears victory. Whatever happens though, it's been a great season, and I'll probably look back on it with fond memories in the future.

To conclude this post, I have a useless tidbit I'd like to share. Peyton Manning is about to do something that's never been done before. He'll be the first starting quarterback in Super Bowl history to wear #18. You can look it up. Of the available numbers for a quarterback (1-19), 1, 2 and 6 have never been worn either. Warren Moon and Jeff George are the only quarterbacks I can think of offhand who wore number 1, so it might be some time before the number loses that distinction. We've got a few 2's and 6's (Aaron Brooks, Chris Simms and Jay Cutler come immediately to mind), so perhaps one day those will be taken off the list too. Does information get any more meaningless?