There's never been a better example of making the story fit the preordained story line than this: Peyton Manning, Super Bowl MVP.

How easy was that to predict? If the Colts won, Manning was going to be MVP. If the Colts lost, Manning was going to be the goat for the ages. Middle ground? Doesn't exist.

It really doesn't matter to anyone outside of a Colts uniform, but this kind of stuff is incredibly annoying. Manning should not have been the MVP. Dominic Rhodes and Joseph Addai should have shared it, and they would have if there hadn't been a two-week national obsession with Manning leading up to the game.

Everyone agreed the game was decided by field position and ball possession -- oh, joy -- and Rhodes and Addai were the main reasons the Colts had the field position and held the ball.

Of course, this is all pointless, because perception wins out over reality every time. (Existential question: If it rains throughout a Super Bowl and nobody on CBS mentions it, does anyone on the field get wet?) It was Manning's time, so fine -- give him the MVP and pretend he was the hero and feel good he finally won The Big Game. But don't fool yourself into thinking he was anything more than serviceable.

Rhodes kept the ball away from the Bears in the second half (Chicago wouldn't have done anything with it, but still) and Addai's 10 catches were hugely important to the Colts' ball-control, short-passing offense.

Obviously, Manning was well-served to be playing against Rex Grossman, which meant taking a snap and staying upright equaled quarterbacking supremacy.

But look at it this way: If the teams were reversed, and the Bears had won exactly the same way the Colts did, Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson would have been the MVPs and Rex Grossman would have been viewed as a guy who somehow won the Super Bowl by understanding his limitations and adhering to the game plan.

It doesn't matter. Really, it doesn't, but here's the problem: Nobody has much imagination anymore, and every once in a while the cumulative weight of it is just too damned much to bear.

This Week's List
• This might be a little bit on the anarchist side, but one more thing about Peyton Manning: If anyone in the NFL -- with the exception of Tom Brady -- pitched the kinds of fits he pitches on the field and the sideline, he'd be labeled a malcontent and a bum and just a general poor sport.

• Just to dig a bit deeper: If Terrell Owens yelled at his offensive coordinator … OK, you're right, I'm taking this too far.

• A simple question from the midday excitement of MSNBC: "What Are Celebrities Teaching Your Kids?"

• I guess Billy Bob Thornton's no longer teaching that trig class: I just checked my kids' class schedules -- no celebrity teachers to be found.

• Just for the heck of it: Sidney Green.

• On top of everything else, he appears to be a man who has perfected the art of diving for a ball and appearing to want to recover it but falling just short of being in danger of serious contact: Rex Grossman didn't seem to have great interest in recovering any of his own fumbles.

• Too late, but the way it looked from my couch: The Bears would have been much better off with more Thomas Jones running and less Rex Grossman throwing on first down.

• At the risk of sounding as hip and knowledgeable as Andy Rooney: The most amazing thing about the Super Bowl was the stark realization that Chicago made it that far with Grossman as the QB.

• Because, if you're like me, your first thought after the final gun was, "Man, I wonder if Reggie Wayne's going to concentrate on speed or route-running this offseason": The best sports stories of the year -- the ones when someone wonders whether the team that just won the championship is going to repeat the next year.

• And in other news, coal mining is a dangerous profession and dropping a chest of drawers on your bare toes hurts like hell: In an interview with a Phoenix television station, Charles Barkley revealed that he has won a lot of money and lost a lot of money gambling.

• And finally, it's the new diet -- it's made him a little cranky: A Virginia restaurant manager claims Morgan State coach Todd Bozeman was belligerent and "screaming that he didn't want ham sandwiches" when he allegedly assaulted a female employee.

Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. Sound off to Page 2 here.