Well, after a week off, I'm back making picks. Just to remind you, my conference championship round picks went something like this: Indy big; New Orleans by a field goal. That went pretty well.

So after much thought and planning, I've decided I can sum up my Super Bowl pick in about three sentences. And since I need more than that to fill up this space, let's move onto other topics and finish up with Super Bowl XXIV:

Boy, I sure missed former WRAL-TV newsman Jim Payne over the weekend. I just didn't know what to do in a snowstorm without Jim there telling me to "hunker down" in one form or another every 18 seconds. Payne, who now works at WESH-TV (NBC) in Orlando, did this during one of our major snowstorms a few years back. Sure, he's won major awards as a broadcaster, but I just remember two things about Jim from his time here: his hair (which was great by even news anchor standards) and his insistence that we all "hunker down" and not get out on the roads in a snowstorm...

So that Simon Cowell looks pretty smart for jumping off of the "American Idol" bandwagon come next season. After all, the show has to have hit its peak and can only be considered on the decline. So old Simon avoids being associated to any degree with the fall of the once legendary American Idol and only gets brought up as the reason the show worked so well before it met its demise.

Then I did a rare thing. With nothing else on, I actually watched most of one of the first-week shows last month. And now I've changed my mind. Certainly, Cowell is a great reason to tune into Idol, but the show's unique (and now much copied) format will continue to be appointment TV for many viewers. With a three- or four-person panel, there's always going to be somebody you love and a couple of others you can't stand.

And what's better than watching somebody else make a fool out of himself trying to sing on TV? Then, every once in a while, and certainly over the final month or so of the show, you get a few guys and gals who can actually sing and it's quite entertaining.

Sounds like a pretty good formula for a long-running show to me...

I officially turned into my father last week. Cleaned up a few cabinets, throwing away stuff, reorganizing stuff. In the process I found multiple packs of screws to things already installed in the house or long gone. Of course, I couldn't tell you what any of them went to, but I saved them anyway. Why?

Because I'm a Best man and that's what Best men do. We begin to horde random screws and bolts as we age, preferably in plastic food containers...

So if Tim Tebow can't take a snap from under center and look better than me doing it by the time of the NFL Combine (late February), that'd be the time he should look at playing another position - tight-end, H-back, fullback - in the NFL. The way he looked in the Senior Bowl on Saturday, even while playing out of the shotgun against vanilla defenses, he won't get drafted, much less actually play quarterback in an NFL game...

Oh yeah, the Super Bowl. One team has Peyton Manning, the other one doesn't. So guess which one I'm picking?

Sure, Drew Brees is a nice little quarterback and all, but the Colts are on the brink of being really great for a few years. Like Montana-49ers great. So I'm saying that run starts here with Colts 45, Saints 14 this Sunday.

Plus, I can't (under article 27 of the sportswriter's credo) pick a team to win a championship that's never won a championship until they actually win a championship. It was the legendary Beano Cook who summed this standard up best when he said in the 1990s on the pick of the Cardinals winning the NFC West: "Arizona? Picking Arizona to win anything is like picking France in a war."

It kind of makes you rethink that whole French-Cajun-Louisiana, fleur-de-lis thing the Saints have going, doesn't it?

My Record in the Playoffs: 6-4 (Yeah, so much for that whole quest for a real 10-win season.)

Conference Championship Round: 2-0