Monday, January 16, 2006
THE GREAT WHITE HYPE
Sunday afternoon, an announcer referred to Colts quarterback Peyton Manning as a surgeon on the football field.
Well, if Manning is a surgeon you better make sure he doesn't have to perform any life-saving operations. Prepare the last rites if he does.
Repeat after me...Peyton Manning is an over-rated choke artist.
Manning proved it once again Sunday afternoon as he performed average at best in a stunning 21-18 loss to the underdog Pittsburgh Steelers. The same Steelers team that the Colts thumped 26-7 during the regular season.
But those are the two key words: regular season.
Come playoff time Manning shows his true colors and the Colts head home early.
Manning is now 3-6 in the postseason. He has played eight years, is 30 years old and has only taken the Colts to an AFC title game once. His three wins have come against a Chiefs team with a defense as helpless as George Foreman at a buffet line and against two mediocre Broncos teams.
This is hardly the stuff of legends. But then again Manning is not a legend. He's far from it. People like Sean Salisbury and all the other instant historians at ESPN can talk about how wonderful Manning is but the bottom line is he wilts under pressure.
This was supposed to the Colts year. They had the most talent, they had home-field advantage, they were healthy and they had no Patriots to worry about.
And they still blew it.
Manning's numbers (22-of-38, 290 yards and a touchdown) look respectable but they are down from the regular season. Add to that most of those yards came when the Steelers inexplicably went to a prevent defense and stopped rushing four players and it's clear Manning choked...again.
Had it not been for arguably the worst officiating call in history the final score would not even been as close at it was. Less than six minutes remaining and Manning throws a terrible pass to Steelers safety Troy Polamalu. Polamalu clearly has possession before fumbling on his way up and the officials somehow find "indisputable evidence" that the interception was not clean. The right call basically ends the game but I guess that's what they call home-field advantage.
Flash forward to the final minutes. The Colts get the ball back with all their timeouts and more than two minutes remaining. With the pressure on, Peyton and the Colts go four and out as Manning is sacked at the 2-yard line.
Fate seems to be with the Colts when Jerome Bettis fumbles and the Colts take over near the 40-yard line still with three timeouts. Yes, Manning drove the Colts into field-goal range but 46 yards is hardly a chip shot.
The truly great quarterbacks, like the Montana's, the Elway's, the Brady's either drive their teams to game-winning touchdowns in the same situation or at worst set up their kickers for chip shot field goals.
But Manning is not a great quarterback. Game, set, match. See you Colts. Your window may officially be closed.
There has never been a quarterback who has lost as much as Manning in the postseason with the kind of talent he has at his disposal. This guy has two of the league's best receivers, one of the best running backs, a solid offensive line, a good tight end and one of the league's best defenses. And yet he still can't lead his team to a win over the conference's No. 6 seed.
It's just the latest in a long-line of Manning chokes. Go back to college and look at the 0-4 record against Florida and the fact that Tennessee never played for a national championship. Look at his 3-6 record and how he has lost two home games to wild card Titan and Steelers team after the Colts entered with 13-3 and 14-2 records.
Look at his titanic flops the last two years against the Patriots or his horrible performances in a 41-0 2002 wild card loss to the Jets.
Manning just doesn't have it.
Montana had it. Elway had it. Bradshaw had it. Brady has it. Even Jake Delhomme has it.
It is the ability to play your best when the pressure as its highest and the games mean the most. Some of Joe Montana's most famous comebacks came in the NFC Championships or Super Bowls. Same with Elway and Brady in the AFC.
Jake Delhomme may not be a legend but he has it. The Panthers have been a wildcard team in his two trips to the playoffs and he has led them to a 5-1 record during that span, winning four of those games on the road. His only loss came in the Super Bowl against the Patriots when he helped the Panthers erase a 21-10 fourth-quarter deficit only to have Brady lead another game-winning drive in the final minute.
Delhomme plays his best football in the playoffs. Manning plays his best football in the regular season games. Usually, he does his best against the likes of division doormats like the Texans and Titans, teams that combined for six wins this season.
Recently, some people have tried to compare Manning to Marino since they are two prolific passers who never won the super bowl. But to make that comparison is not fair to Marino. Manning has not done anything to warrant that comparison.
Marino may not have won the big one but at least he took the Dolphins to a super bowl. Marino also didn't have the luxuries that Manning did. He never had a consistent running game, let alone a stud like James, and he never had a defense that could stifle opponents the way the Colts did this year.
When Marino had his two best years in 1984 and 1985 the Dolphins lost in the super bowl and the AFC championship. Manning's two supposedly spectacular 2004 and 2005 seasons ended with humbling divisional playoff losses in which the Colts have combined to score 21 points.
So how does Manning respond to once again underachieving in a big game? By saying in a post-game press conference that the Colts had "protection problems." That a boy, Peyton way to be a man and blame it on somebody else.
If Manning is as good as so many make him out to be, a team pressuring him should not faze him. Montana was sacked nine times against the Eagles in 1989 but in enemy territory he threw four fourth-quarter touchdown passes, erased an 11-point deficit and led the eventual world champions to a 38-28 win. He did the same type of thing four years later when the Oilers consistently pounded him in the Astrodome before Montana worked his magic and led the Chiefs back from a 10-0 halftime deficit to a 28-20 win.
This is the NFL. Teams are going to pressure the quarterback, Peyton. The fact that you can't handle it largely explains why you fold up in big games and have never led the Colts to the super bowl. The Steelers came out and attacked Manning early and the result was even when they weren't near him, Peyton was playing with happy feet in the pocket and was throwing ineffectively.
Talk about a sunshine soldier.
A few weeks ago Sports Illustrated's Peter King said something that made me almost choke on my soup. He said something about how at 29 Manning already is one of the 10 greatest quarterbacks ever.
That may have been the dumbest comment ever printed.
You have to look beyond regular-season yardage and touchdown pass and rating stats to measure the mark of greatness in a quarterback. To make a comment that ridiculous is to have no historical perspective. It is to take a shot at legends such as Montana, Elway, Unitas, Starr, Graham, Baugh, Staubach, Bradshaw, Van Brocklin, Luckman and Brady. See, right there are 12 guys who Manning does not come close to meausuring up too.
Don't get me wrong. Manning is a very good quarterback. But he is not the great one so many in the media try to make him out to be.
Maybe it's in the genes. Manning's father Archie never had a winning season and Eli. Well, we all saw that the acorn doesn't fall from the tree in last week's game against the Panthers.
So get it right media. Peyton Manning is an outstanding regular season quarterback but he will never enter the discussion of legends until he wins a really big game. And don't bet on that ever happening.
He just doesn't have it.
If it's a regular-season game against a creampuff team like the Texans, Manning is the guy I want.
But if it's a playoff game. Well, then I'll take anybody but Manning.
Except Eli.
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