What caught my attention from Week 17 and beyond

	Tony Dungy was able to keep the game ball in his return to the sidelines on Sunday. Andy Lyons/Getty Images
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INDIANAPOLIS -- Six topics, from the state of Tony Dungy, to the state of the Colts, to the downfall of Mike Tice, to what an utter waste the end of the season has become to teams that have clinched a playoff spot, to my pick for MVP, to the most important pick of all (some would say) ... the first pick in the 2006 draft:

The Dungy Chronicles

Safety Mike Doss retrieved the game ball for Tony Dungy following the Colts' 17-13 win over Arizona on Sunday and Dungy smiled broadly as he clutched it. Then Dungy waved to the crowd, but with joy, not sorrow.

Following his son's death on Dec. 22, Dungy thought long about when would be the right time to return to coaching. He said that if he was to be a man of his convictions -- and his convictions are those of a man of God, he could not wallow in his sorrow; he needed to get back to work. If, as he believes, his son is in heaven with his God, then that is something to be celebrated, and Tony wouldn't be doing his duty as a Christian to remain house-bound, mourning. "I had to make a statement as a Christian,'' Dungy said. "As tough as it is, and I discussed it with my wife, I've got to be able to move on.''

I attended Tuesday's two-hour, 10-minute, rock-the-rafters, Southern Baptist funeral for James Dungy, and near the end Tony stepped to the podium and did something incredible. With his 18-year-old son's body in the closed cherry casket before him, his entire Indianapolis Colts team to the left, his extended family and friends (including Denny Green, Warren Sapp and Herm Edwards) to his right, the NFL family (including Paul Tagliabue, John Mara, Jack Del Rio, Malcolm Glazer, Ronde Barber and Rich McKay) in the center section, Tony eulogized his son for 15 minutes.

Can you imagine anything harder? Your eldest son was just home for Thanksgiving. You see him so often you don't even hug him when he leaves for his new home after dinner. You talk to him on the phone and tell him, Yes, if the team gets to the Super Bowl, he'll be on the field during the game, on the Colt sidelines with Dad. Now he's dead. And you're standing in front of a teary crowd of 2,000 trying to explain.

"My daughter Tiara said it best the other day,'' Dungy said. "She said, 'I just wish he could have made it 'til he was 20. If James could have only made it to 20, he'd have been all right. Because when you're 17 or 18 years old, you don't think everything your parents say is right. But by the time you're 20 or 21, you start thinking they were right on most things.' But he just couldn't make it to 20."

Dungy, in his polite but firm way, talked about how James struggled to keep grounded in the face of a culture that said young black men should dress, speak and conduct themselves opposite of the way Tony and his wife had taught James. He was trying to grow up, on his own, away from his mother and father, in the town in which he had spent his formative years.

Then Dungy told his team, in his first remarks to them since James' death, how proud he was of them. "You are the best role models this society could have,'' he said.