Peyton's Place

Peyton Manning is perfect, a genius really, he is the embodiment of flawless precision at the Quarterback position. The way he changes play calls at the line appears seamless in its brilliance yet effortless in its effectiveness. Let's face it Peyton's understanding of defenses makes Bobby Fisher's understanding of a chessboard seem pedantic. I'm not even sure what pedantic means, but I know that Peyton's sweat contains the cure for the irrigation problem in Ethiopia. 

One of my favorite things about Peyton's flawlessness if- wait WHAT? What do you mean they lost? But that's impossible. Weren't we just discussing whether or not Peyton ranks higher than Joe Montana and Tom Brady? 

Brees and the Saints played to win from the drop and never took their collective foot off of the gas. It wasn't flawless (Bucs loss) but the right team won the 44th Super Bowl.

Look, Peyton is one of the all-time great quarterbacks. No argument, but he isn't in the top five all-time. Until further notice he ranks just ahead of the Dans, Marino and Fouts. That's it, no higher than that. Congrats on the stats, but they don't mean di(& unless you win. In fact if Drew Brees continues winning championships Peyton is going to slide DOWN the list.

The Colts got cute late in the season by easing off of the gas. Sure they beat the Ravens and the Jets but lets remember that the Ravens were playing with thteir fourth and fifth cornerbacks because of injuries and everybody considered the Jets the second coming despite the fact that they needed both the Colts AND the Bengals to mail it in in order to even make it into the playoffs. 

Mean while the Saints were forced to beat two of the best five offenses in the league in order to MAKE the Super Bowl. The paths were different and the Saints were forced to play with the pedal down the whole way. 

The Colts played "well enough," to make it to the Super Bowl. That's great and all unless the other team doesn't roll over. Teams that win championships play with the killer instinct from week one until they hoist the Lombardi Trophy and the Colts didn't do that. 

It's just the way that it works. YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME. Maybe Peyton and the boys would've had a different outcome tonight if they had taken that motto to heart.

I'm just Spiffballing here, but what if we try to hit their QB?

Greg Williams comments on that college radio program last week- What? Oh, really? You mean those guys giggling like school girls after one of the oldest cliched responses in football were "professionals". You're telling me they get paid for that? O-Kay.

Anyway, Greg Williams, Defensive Coordinator for the New Orleans Saints, used the always effective "cut off the head and the body will follow" standard response to an asinine question that was essentially, "Tell us what your gameplan is for the Super Bowl." Williams answered and followed it up with three or four accolades about Peyton Manning and the Colts offense. The only mildly incendiary comment came at the very end of the response when he said that his guys would need to put in a few "remember me" shots on the rare occasion that his team made it to the Quarterback.  

Was Greg Williams being disrespectful of Manning and the Colts? No, quite the contrary, he was actually lauding the future Hall of Famer and his ability to get rid of the ball long before a pass rush could ever get to him. So why all the hub bub over these comments. There must be something sinister at work here or ESPN wouldn't be making such a big deal out of them, right?

Perhaps everyone is making a big deal out of his comments because Peyton is concerned for his safety on the field? No that's totally moronic, Peyton Manning has had a bullseye on his chest, back and head since the day after the Colts picked him ahead of Ryan Leaf. And the fact of the matter is he almost never takes a hard shot. 

So that's not it. Let's see...hurmmm...I've got it the idea that when you hit the QB the whole team feels it is so revolutionary that every other team in the league just might institute a similar approach when they are putting a game plan together. 

That's it! Hit the Quarterback...hard. Pheew, I was beginning to think that this was just getting extra attention because of the Super Bowl. Well that and the suggestion that maybe, perhaps, the other team might want to take the NFL's prize pig out of the game. Boy, do I feel stupid. These comments really ARE a big deal.

Sorry everybody, nothing to see here, I was waaaay off base. This whole thing was over the idea that the other teams Quartarback must go down, oh, and he must go down hard...you know, so that the going down part is truly effective. Huh, that's weird...I just got the strangest flash of Deja Vu? Probably nothing.

[editor's note- Because these comments were made publicly about the aforementioned Cash Cow we are likely to see extra attention given to late hits and roughing the passer penalties. This sucks and I hope that I'm wrong but I would set the over/under for those penalties at three and a half.  Even the oft concussed Troy Aikman feels that the refs call too many penalties in the name of QB protection.]

Anyway, now that we have solved that little controversy the NFL can get back to the really important issues of the day. Like making sure that no one from New Orleans benefits from that "Who Dat?" slogan, because that's getting out of hand.

Momentum

When I sat down to write my latest entry this morning I was basking in the warm glow another late season swoon from the gun toting-wrangler wearing-gray beard. This time at the hands of Jay-eff George Cutler and that potent Bears offense. I was planning on killing Brett's selfishness and how it is killing the 3rd seeded Vikings but then I listened to the post game analysis.

These jokers spend more time covering up bad decisions than Bill Clinton's press secretary.  "The Vikings may have lost but Brett Favre is showing that he is in mid-season form and ready for a big playoff push." Really? He didn't score enough for his team to win. I mean that IS still how we determine a winner and a loser, right? The team that scores more wins. Am I right? Anyone, anyone, Bueller. And these rocket scientists were the same core group that said, "The Colts pulled their starters with a 15-10 lead, which will help to position the team for a deep run in the playoffs." Oh, I see. What they are trying to tell us is losing late in the season is a necessary step in a championship season. Right, got it....WRONG!

"You play to win the game."

Football is the most precise team sport in the world, sorry curling fans. Dialing it in does not better prepare your team for the playoffs and neither do late season losses that cost you first round byes.

I was critical when Belicheat waved the white flag by pulling Tom Bundchen and the Boys with over five minutes to go (here) earlier this season and I fully supported Mike Tomlin's decision to play Big Ben in the meaningless regular season final last season where he received, you guessed it, another concussion. Football is a game that forces you to go all out all the time because the teams that win the Super Bowl are ALWAYS the teams that are completely in-sync.

Momentum is one of the most over used words in sports. There is an ebb and flow to all sports that centers on confidence and precision. In hockey "momentum" comes in the form of a short quirky goal tender that can do splits while wearing 40-lbs. of equipment. The old saying in baseball is that momentum is only as good as tomorrows starting pitcher. And Basketball is basically a 40-minute phone-it-in-a-thon leading up to the final eight minute kick start where the ebb and flow of the game is entirely predicated on the referee's standing with his bookie (here).

Football is different. In no other sport do you have to rely on eleven individuals to work in unison, in three-phases, for 60 minutes. Any one of those phases falters and it can cost you a championship.

The only time that the Indy Colts have won the Super Bowl they had to play their way into the playoffs and into the Wild Card round. Every time they have had a bye they have lost. Oh, and please don't tell me that the Colts won Super Bowl V, I know they did but that was the Baltimore Colts they did so with a rookie idiot kicker and two guys from the Cowboys were named MVP, they were an entirely different team.

Peyton is all about timing and you don't help your timing by holding a clipboard.

In fact this decade has only seen one #1 seeded team win a Super Bowl, 2003 Patriots. That team won the final 11 games leading to the last game of the season and instead of pulling the starters Belicheat sent out the first stringers to dismantle the Bills 31-0 in a totally meaningless game.

More to the point of the nine teams that have won the Super Bowl this decade eight of them did so while playing hard through the final five games of the season. The only team that mailed one in was the Tampa Bay Bucs in 2002, where they started Rob Johnson. Of course that team won the Super Bowl because of a stifling defense. I mean I could have started at Quarterback and they still would have won.

Jim Caldwell really didn't learn anything from Tony Dungy's mistakes, in fact I think that by definition he is insane. You know the whole repeated behavior and expecting different results thing. The Colts are destined to lose early and the Vikings are just bad.

There is a silver lining for those teams however, because this year they play the Pro Bowl the week before the Super Bowl. So it's not like media darlings Brett and Payton won't have an opportunity to settle the on going raging debate over "Greatest Quarterback" in history (Regular Season Category) on the field...it's just going to take place in a meaningless game.

Then we can get on to the trivial stuff like who's the best team in football.