Super Bowl XLI: The Chicago Bears won the coin toss. Hmmm, sounds like a good sign as rookie sensation Devin Hester awaits Adam Vinatieri’s kickoff.

Then suddenly. the Bears fans jumped out of their seats, opened their arms toward the big screens and yelled in unison as Hester caught a kickoff and sprinted 92 yards into the end zone.

And that was only the first 14 seconds of Super Bowl XLI. But a coronation was unavoidable, and the great Ringless One is ringless no more. Yes, Peyton Manning is a Super Bowl winner at last.

Without Rex Grossman, this could have been a pretty good Super Bowl. Don’t crown their you-know-whats. In the end, the Bears were what Dennis Green - and so many other critics - thought they were: REX is really GROSS, man!

For Chicago, it’s a case of déjà vu. Remember Tedd Ginn, Jr. and the so-called “Super Bowl coin toss curse”?

Hester’s runback matched Ginn’s feat in the Bowl Championship Series title game a month earlier. Ginn took the opening kick back 93 yards for a touchdown against Florida, but the Buckeyes wound up losing 41-14 to the Gators in college football’s national championship game.

Another bad sign for the Bears may have come before kickoff. Chicago won the coin toss; over the last 11 years, the coin-toss winner has lost the Super Bowl nine times.

Leaving the Miami stadium afterward, many Bears fans said the best team — with the best quarterback — had won.

It was a nice Super Bowl dream while it lasted.

In retrospect, maybe we should have seen it coming. Or maybe we did and didn’t want to admit it.

This is how I’ll remember the day.

The Colts are a best price 6/1 at Bodog’s odds to win Super Bowl XLII along with the San Diego Chargers, while the Bears are 8/1 to go one better in twelve months time.

Biggest Super Bowl long shots? That would be Oakland, Houston, Detroit, Cleveland, Tampa Bay and San Francisco, all at 100-1.