It poured. That’s the first thing anyone remembers about the Bears Colts Super Bowl. Not the halftime show, though Prince playing "Purple Rain" in a literal tropical storm was objectively the coolest thing to ever happen on a football field. No, fans remember the wet. The fumbles. The sloppy, beautiful, miserable mess of Super Bowl XLI.
On February 4, 2007, Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens became a slip-and-slide. If you were rooting for Chicago, the game started like a fever dream. Devin Hester took the opening kickoff 92 yards for a touchdown. Imagine being a Colts fan, barely sitting down with your overpriced beer, and seeing the greatest return man in history slice through your special teams before you even took a breath. It was the first time an opening kickoff had ever been returned for a TD in Super Bowl history.
Chicago felt invincible for about thirteen minutes. Then reality, and Peyton Manning, set in.
The Rex Grossman Problem and the Manning Legacy
We have to talk about Rex Grossman. Honestly, "Sexy Rexy" is a meme now, but in 2006, he was a polarizing enigma. He’d throw for 300 yards and three touchdowns one week, then post a 0.0 passer rating the next. In the Bears Colts Super Bowl, the "Bad Rex" showed up when it mattered most.
The Colts' defense, coached by Tony Dungy, wasn’t actually that good during the regular season. They were ranked dead last against the run. Everyone thought Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson would just steamroll them. But Bob Sanders came back from injury just in time for the playoffs. He changed everything. Sanders was a human heat-seeking missile. Suddenly, the Colts could stop the run, which forced the game into Grossman’s hands.
That’s usually where things went sideways for Chicago.
Peyton Manning wasn't exactly "Prime Peyton" in this game either, though. He threw a bad interception to Chris Harris early on. He looked rattled by the rain. But Manning’s greatness wasn't always about the 50-yard bombs; it was about the check-downs to Dominic Rhodes and Joseph Addai. The Colts realized that in a monsoon, you don't play hero ball. You grind. Rhodes ended up with 113 rushing yards. Addai had 77 on the ground and another 66 through the air. They bled the clock. They kept the Bears' defense, led by Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs, on the field until they gasped for air.
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The Historic Significance Nobody Mentions
People focus on the stats, but the real weight of this game was on the sidelines. Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith. Two Black head coaches. This had never happened before in a Super Bowl. It’s wild to think it took until 2007, but the significance wasn't lost on anyone that night.
Dungy was the mentor. Smith was the protege.
They both ran the "Tampa 2" defense, a scheme that relies on speed and discipline rather than exotic blitzes. It was a chess match between two men who respected each other deeply. When the clock hit zero and the Colts won 29-17, Dungy became the first African American head coach to hoist the Lombardi Trophy. That’s the legacy. That’s the "why it matters" part of the Bears Colts Super Bowl that transcends the box score.
The Turning Point: Kelvin Hayden’s Dagger
The score was 22-17 late in the fourth quarter. Chicago had the ball. They had hope. It was one of those moments where a legendary drive could have cemented Grossman as a Chicago hero forever.
Instead, he threw a wobbler toward Muhsin Muhammad.
Kelvin Hayden, a cornerback who actually grew up in Chicago and played for the University of Illinois, jumped the route. He didn't just catch it; he took it 56 yards back to the house. You could hear the collective soul of Chicago exit the stadium. That pick-six ended the game. It was the definitive "Grossman moment."
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Why the Bears Actually Lost (It Wasn't Just Rex)
It’s easy to blame the QB. It’s also kinda lazy.
The Bears lost because they couldn't hold onto the ball. Period. There were eight turnovers in that game—five by Chicago. You can’t win a middle school game with five turnovers, let alone a Super Bowl against a Hall of Fame quarterback.
- Cedric Benson’s Injury: Benson went down early with a knee injury. While Thomas Jones was running well (he finished with 112 yards), losing the 1-2 punch meant the Bears couldn't keep the Colts' defense honest.
- The Third Down Meltdown: The Bears went 3-for-10 on third downs. They couldn't sustain drives.
- Manning’s Audibles: Peyton spent the entire game screaming at the line of scrimmage. He saw the Tampa 2 coverage and kept checking into draws and screens. He out-thought Lovie Smith.
The weather played a huge role, but the Colts handled it better. They used a "no-huddle" look that didn't give the Bears time to adjust their defensive front. It was surgical. It was boring, at times, because it was so efficient. But that’s how Manning won his first ring. He stopped trying to be a superstar and started being a manager.
The Aftermath: Two Franchises Diverge
After the Bears Colts Super Bowl, these two teams went in opposite directions. The Colts remained a perennial powerhouse for another few years until Manning's neck injury. Chicago? They spent the next two decades searching for a quarterback.
Think about it. Since 2007, the Bears have tried everyone from Jay Cutler to Mitchell Trubisky to Justin Fields and Caleb Williams. That Super Bowl loss felt like a curse. It was the peak of the Lovie Smith era, and they never quite got back to that mountain top.
On the other side, Peyton Manning finally shed the "can't win the big one" label. Before 2007, the narrative was that he was a regular-season hero who choked in January. That rain-soaked night in Miami killed that story. He wasn't the MVP of the game because of his stats (25/38, 247 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT)—he was the MVP because he stayed calm when the ball felt like a bar of soap.
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What Most People Get Wrong About Super Bowl XLI
A common misconception is that the Bears' defense failed. They didn't. They held a high-powered Colts offense to 29 points, and 7 of those points came from a defensive interception return. They kept the game close despite their offense basically handing the ball to Indianapolis every other possession.
Also, people forget how good Thomas Jones was that night. He averaged 7.5 yards per carry. If the Bears had just kept handing him the ball and stopped letting Rex throw into double coverage, we might be talking about a Chicago dynasty. But football is a game of "what ifs."
Actionable Takeaways for Football Historians and Fans
If you're revisiting this game or studying why it went the way it did, keep these points in mind for your next sports debate:
- Contextualize the Turnovers: Don't just look at the final score. Watch the fumbles. The rain was a character in this game. Both teams struggled, but the Colts' ability to recover their own mistakes was the difference.
- Study the Tampa 2: This game was the absolute peak of that defensive philosophy. Both teams ran it. If you want to understand mid-2000s football, watch how the middle linebackers (Urlacher and Gary Brackett) played the deep middle of the field.
- Appreciate Devin Hester: We will likely never see another returner dominate a game’s opening like that. It forced the Colts to kick away from him the rest of the night, which changed their field position strategy entirely.
- Research the Dungy/Smith Tree: Look at how many coaches came out of that game. The "Coaching Tree" of Super Bowl XLI is massive and still impacts the NFL today.
The Bears Colts Super Bowl wasn't the prettiest game. It wasn't the highest-scoring. But it was a masterclass in grit. It was the night the "Sheriff" got his badge and the night Chicago's "Monsters of the Midway" met a storm they couldn't weather.
For fans who want to relive the specific atmosphere, go watch the highlights of the halftime show. Seeing Prince shred a guitar solo in a downpour while the wind whipped his scarf around is the perfect metaphor for the game: chaotic, risky, and ultimately legendary.
If you're looking to dive deeper into the stats of that era, check out the Pro Football Reference pages for the 2006 Colts. You'll see just how much of an outlier their run defense was during that four-game playoff stretch compared to the rest of their season. It remains one of the greatest "flips of the switch" in NFL history.