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As I expected, the Chicago Bears lost Super Bowl XLI to the Indianapolis Colts. And, as everyone else has noted, the score doesn’t reflect how soundly the Bears were beaten.

I won’t bother getting into that, except to repeat the mantra I said even after Devin Hester’s opening kickoff return TD: “The Bears still have Rex Grossman under center.” That’s pretty much the executive summary of the game.

No, my problem is that with several bits of nonsense now officially discharged from debate — such as who would be the first black coach to win the Super Bowl, whether Peyton Manning’s legacy will be sealed with a win, etc., etc. — we can now move on to new nonsense.

What more does Manning need to do?

Already, people are asking whether one Super Bowl win is enough to make Manning the Greatest Quarterback of All Time. For crissakes, barring major injury — and you can’t question Manning’s durability with a straight face — he has at least another four years to play, maybe 10.

Given the consistency of his stats over the nine seasons he has played, he’s going to challenge all the throwing records when (not if) he stays healthy.

But that’s the future. This is now. And if you asked me, if he retired today, is Peyton Manning a first-ballot Hall of Famer? I’d say, “If he isn’t, we need a new Hall Of Fame induction panel.”

Michael Irvin: Legend? Bullshit.

Of course, I’m likely to say that anyway, since Michael Irvin is going to the Hall and Art Monk isn’t.

I can’t allow that a coke-addled nincompoop should be in the Hall of Fame because it’s on-field performance that counts. I can refuse to accept the premise for the simple hypocrisies involved, such as that of Peter King, who’s smart enough to avoid directly supporting Irvin over Monk but dumb enough to loudly support the “on-field” defense, has the gall to turn around, in virtually the same breath, and call poker games on TV a bad message to send kids.

I also can’t accept it because Irvin was caught in drug and sex scandals in the middle of his NFL career, for which he served a five-game suspension in 1996. If the League considered his actions off the field punishable at the time he was playing, why aren’t his actions punishable when deciding who has the greater legacy? Let’s not even mention that, not having learned his lesson, Irvin got jammed two more times, after retiring, on drug charges, then made a fool of himself last year (more so than usual, that is) by claiming Tony Romo’s ancestors must be black.

So it’s OK to possess drugs and babble racist inanities that would get white commentators rightfully thrown under the nearest bus, because he didn’t do it on the field. The same way it’s OK to kill your wife because you set some rushing records with the Buffalo Bills, I suppose.

And don’t bother calling Irvin’s “black ancestors” gaffe a joke.

Former Atlanta Falcons coach Jim Mora Jr. was kidding when he said he’s take the University of Washington coaching job, and that was a big part of his being fired — well, that and the fact that almost every starter on his defense and almost every wideout, over the last two years, has been seriously injured. Oh, and, of course, yet another thing everyone knows but no one dares say: Michael Vick is an awful quarterback.

A 75.7 QB rating in what amounts to five seasons is, in short, a disgrace. It’s basically the same rating David Carr has over a similar period, and Carr’s on the way out of Houston — on a rail. Vick generated the same end result while playing behind a better line, and with a considerably better tight end, than Houston has.

Vick’s awful performance is a significant part of the Falcon’s issues: They aren’t a deep threat because even if Vick had fast receivers, he couldn’t get the ball to them. So sure, the Falcons averaged 184 yards per game running. They managed only nine rushing touchdowns. Their dead-last passing game (148 yards per game, worse than even the Oakland Raiders) came up with 21.

True, Vick has posted nearly 4,000 yards rushing in his career. That’s fine. Put him in the backfield and let him run the option once a game. You’d get basically the same results.

OK, enough of that diversion. Back to Irvin.

Even if I accept that being a lowlife off the football field shouldn’t affect your Hall of Fame bid, which I won’t, I can’t accept that an inferior player is getting into the Hall before Monk.

I’d like someone to explain how Irvin, playing on the pre-salary-cap Dallas Cowboys, surrounded by better talent but producing worse stats, all the while acting like the “me, me, me” receivers everyone says are bad for the game, wins out over Monk, who was the key to the accomplishments his mediocre Washington Redskins managed, had vastly better stats (and caught balls thrown by considerably worse quarterbacks than Troy Aikman), and is one of the true good guys of the NFL.

I’ll spare them the effort. Irvin is in the Hall because Aikman is in the Hall, and because Emmitt Smith is a clear first-ballot guy. Or, more specifically, he’s in the Hall because Jerry Jones wants him in the Hall.

That’s the truth, and I know it’s the truth because Hall of Fame voting is clearly total bullshit, which is the unerring result anytime huge sums of money, huge egos and sycophantic decision-makers are involved. Witness the Iraq war.