Well, it was a great game. It was rain­ing, ball was slip­pery, and Man­ning final­ly got his ring. But what about the last three min­utes of the fourth… Why did­n’t the Colts kick the ball? For those of us who just had the urge to bet Colts ‑7 and over 47/47.5/48—that was the big ques­tion.

A cou­ple of fac­tors played its part on this out­come. Here’s some that I know:

• Bad weath­er. It was rain­ing so the ball was a bit slip­pery, and it was too risky to air it out if you are Man­ning and fac­ing Chicago’s defense. This is a plus for the Bears from the get­go as they’ve played in this type of weath­er (as most ana­lyst thought from the begin­ning).
• Run­ning the ball can run the clock out.
• Vinatieri was­n’t that auto­mat­ic tonight. I doubt that he was sole­ly to blame. First of all, Hunter Smith could­n’t get the ball in place. But he was­n’t to blame as well… it was pour­ing down hard for Christ’s sake. Also, laces were out if I recall cor­rect­ly. Although, kick­ing the FG would’ve score 3 more points, and still guar­an­teed the Colts a win even if the Bears score a TD.
• The Mafia and their con­trol of the Vegas/handicapping boards(?)

Mean­while, though you might think that that deci­sion was pret­ty bad (as I did in terms of straight out play­ing to win with excla­ma­tion, we-deserve-this men­tal­i­ty by the Colts), there is… the Human fac­tor. So what fac­tor am I talk­ing about you say? H‑U-M-A‑N fac­tor… like the com­mer­cial. Even though Gatorade was more like­ly in the Colts tonight, they were also very good sports­men.

The sports­man­like con­duct in not try­ing to humil­i­ate your oppo­nent w/ less than three min­utes left was­n’t real­ly the first thing that came to peo­ple’s mind (those who wagered for the over for sure). It was­n’t on top my list when I was think­ing about it for sure (thanks to Ces for shin­ing light on the sub­ject). But it was in the Colts, and espe­cial­ly Coach Dungy’s. Don’t for­get, Coach Smith and Coach Dungy are good friends after all. Ahhh, the Human factor—one rea­son why I love Sports.

Now, if only the rest of us can take the pos­i­tive things that we find in every­day things (like Sports) and tran­scend that ener­gy to the world we live in… what a bet­ter place it would be right?

From my mind to yours, the Human fac­tor.