This year's Super Bowl is done -- the Colts won.

If I were a gambling man I would have bet against the Colts for no other reason than that I was born and raised in Baltimore.

"So," you say. "Everybody was born someplace. What's your birth city got to do with your betting strategy? Don't tell me you are into numerology, Vern."

No, I don't believe numbers play any significant role in determining our fate, but 3-29-1984 are infamous digits to many Balmerians (Balmerian? Talk to a Baltimore native, you'll understand) who remember when the Colts played in Memorial Stadium. You see, then owner, Robert Irsay, after a dispute with the city over a new stadium, packed up the Colts on March 29, 1984, in the middle of the night, and left Baltimore for Indianapolis.

I was never a football fan, but I did watch a few games and was caught up in the city's seemingly undying support for the team. I remember how stunned everyone was when they learned of the move. It was as if Robert Irsay had cut a large part of the heart of the city and stole it away.

To this day there are many Balmerians who refuse to acknowledge the existence of the Colts. I suspect that there were many bets painfully paid last Sunday, feeling like so much salt rubbed into an old wound.

Well, that's my football story, such as it is. I'm sure many of you have your own stories. Some of you played the game, and many more, like me, watched from stadium seats. I'm no huge fan of football, but I understand the game and enjoy movies about it and the people who play.

Burt Lancaster's portrayal of Jim Thorpe was the first movie I remember seeing that got me interested in sports films. (Here's a coincidence for you: Jim Thorpe died on March 28, 1953, the year the Colts franchise was established in Baltimore and 31 years minus a day when the franchise skulked to Indianapolis.)

Now that the football season is over, if you still find that you have a hankering for the game, you can download the pilot episode of Friday Night Lights (FNL), the new TV series patterned after the fairly decent movie of the same name.

If you didn't see the movie don't worry, once you check out the pilot you'll have everything you need to 'get back in the game', so to speak.

FNL chronicles the lives of the players, coaches, and inhabitants of a small Texas town that lives and breathes football. If you are looking for close-ups of teenage gladiators getting pummeled in slow motion, you'll get plenty of that action here, along with a lot of soap opera-like background stories. That's not to say the stories are a bad thing; they add an important element to an otherwise overworked concept.

Some of the stories are predictable; you've got the good player who thinks he's God, the humble player who is better than he thinks he is, the all-out crazy player, the kid playing for (insert family member living vicariously through his or her kid here), the coach that no one is sure of, and so on and so on.

What makes FNL more than just a show filled with cliches is the extra attention to character development. This isn't a movie, after all, so characters become familiar as they expose more of themselves, giving the show depth and the viewer a reason to care and come back each week for more.

Will non-sports fans like FNL? Absolutely. It's good drama, just with a football twist.

On another sports related note; check out the ESPNU College Basketball: Clippings bit. The 31 second spot is an apt depiction of just how seriously some people take their sports.

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