We are our own revisionists. What we know now as fact is something we would not have espoused a few years or months or weeks ago.

We change our minds a lot; we don’t always remember we have done so.

This is a particular problem for sports journalists. Given long enough, we embrace every side of every argument, depending on how the calculus of judgment skews in view of the latest developments. And propounding conflicting views would seem to be an intellectual failure; shouldn’t we get it right the first time?

Until a few minutes ago, I thought I was a steadfast supporter — promoter, even — of Pete Carroll.

Turns out that isn’t true, even within the context of this blog.

But right this minute, I am one of Pete’s biggest fans, which is why I will feel badly about not seeing much (if any) of Super Bowl 48 on Sunday.

Pete Carroll is one of the most common topics in the 2,500-plus-entry history of this blog. I think I counted something like 60 entries in which he appears, and he is the focal point of perhaps 30 of them.

In most of them, yes, I express admiration for Pete Carroll and extol his enthusiasm and personal magnetism. He is easy to like, and he also has the rare quality, among “important” people, of wanting to be liked.

But in a few entries here, I was less that enthusiastic about his competence.

As early as May 2008, when the NCAA was coming down on the USC basketball program, I suggested the football program would be in trouble, too, citing the lax atmosphere of the latter years of the Mike Garrett tenure as athletic director.

In 2009, when USC lost heavily to Oregon, I suggested whatever it was that made Pete’s Trojans special had been lost. An End of an Era, I called it. He couldn’t keep up with the things that were coming down the pike — Chip Kelly at Oregon, in particular.

I returned to the topic two weeks later, when the Trojans let Stanford hang 55 points on them.

When the NCAA finally came down on USC football, I suggested Carroll’s legacy was “mud-spattered”. I wrote: “He will be remembered as a great coach who put some great teams on the field … but apparently had to cheat to do it.”

I said that? Really?

Why, yes. I did.

A bit before the “mud-spattered” entry, I considered Pete’s competence as a coach — which at USC, particular, is an entirely different topic than “did he cheat?”

In a mostly complimentary entry, I suggested that someone his age, who had been able to field superior talent almost every game of his USC career, would have trouble back in the parity-gripped NFL. I predicted he would go 8-8 in his first year at Seattle (it was 7-9, with an NFC West title and a playoffs victory) … and that USC would go 7-6 (it was 8-5).

This is how that entry ended:

An end of an era. You bet. USC will not be this successful again for a very, very long time. And Pete Carroll will never be this successful again. At all. Anywhere.

It’s sad to see this dynamic duo, Pete and Troy, broken up. It was a hell of a ride. But most of us could see the ride was over, and everyone was heading for the exits.

It will be interesting to see how it all goes down, in the fall of 2010.  Not well, is our guess.

And even a year ago, after watching the Seahawks lose in the playoffs, when Pete twice didn’t go for field goals in a game that finished 30-28, I compared him to Bill Belichick, and said I would rather play for Pete but I predicted: “I am fairly sure he will never win a Super Bowl.” And that Belichick was the kind of coach who won in the NFL.

And now here Pete Carroll is, a few days from a Super Bowl.

Looking back at everything cited here, I believe that I did, in fact, have a coherent world view on Pete.

Great energy. Personable. Slow to anger. Thoroughly charismatic. Someone any player would love to be around.

But … maybe not as concerned about the rules as he ought to be (Reggie Bush at USC, failed drug tests at Seattle), and maybe not the greatest X’s and O’s guy around, and someone who had never been a big winner in any situation in which he didn’t marshal clearly superior talent.

And that case can still be made, unless or until he wins the Super Bowl.

This Super Bowl resonates with me like no other in … decades. Maybe since No. 14 (Steelers 31, Rams 19, 1980).

I like and admire Pete Carroll and have been telling people that, here in Abu Dhabi, for weeks. I believe he is a force for good in the often cynical and jealous world of pro football.

The man is 62, the second-oldest coach in the league. And there he is, with a team that went 13-3.

I prefer that he and Seattle win. But that is the sports-writer-as-romantic in me.

Denver probably will be the better-prepared team. Smarter. Peyton Manning will go places with audibles at the line (“Omaha!”) that Russell Wilson has never dreamed of. The NFL narrative often is that the more clever coaches and teams tend to win. And none of us has ever said Pete is a rocket scientist. A solid coach; but no Bill Walsh.

But … many of us prefer to believe that the team that wants it more … the team that loves their coach and their teammates more … the coach who gives the better pre-game speech … can and will win.

That would be Carroll and the Seahawks. It’s the way to root. It’s not the way to bet.