uppy: Love it when people give credit to one player..
http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2010/...olis-colts-testing-mannings-legacy/tab/print/
Today the Fix continues its annual tradition of devoting most of a column to one Super Bowl team. Yesterday we gave the rundown on the Saints. Today we follow with the Colts, then go Super Bowl-free on Friday. We’ll also have bonus Fixes on Saturday and Sunday and running dispatches from Florida all week long.
There’s no debate Peyton Manning is headed for Canton when his playing days are over. He’s all but owned the NFL since the Indianapolis Colts drafted him first overall out of Tennessee in 1998: 50,128 yards passing on 4,232 completions, 366 touchdowns (and just 181 interceptions), four MVP awards, 10 Pro Bowl selections, more wins than any other quarterback in the past decade, and on and on.
“First, Manning has to lead his Indianapolis Colts past Drew Brees’ New Orleans Saints on Sunday in Super Bowl XLIV. That will take everything Manning’s got,” Edwin Pope writes in the Miami Herald. “Then he has to keep measuring up to — and maybe pass, literally speaking — the exploits of Terry Bradshaw, Fran Tarkenton, Joe Montana, Steve Young, Johnny Unitas, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, Bart Starr, Joe Namath, Roger Staubach, John Elway, Troy Aikman, Kurt Warner, and yes, Y.A. Tittle.”
In looking back only over the past 30 years, Sports Illustrated’s Ross Tucker can see why Manning’s a better quarterback than Montana or Tom Brady, and thinks there’s plenty of time for Manning to scorch the record books and snare a few more Lombardi trophies, too.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter says another Super Bowl puts Manning in Michael Jordan territory.
One reason why Manning’s so efficient and effective — and can perform at that level Sunday — is that the Colts protect him very well, allowing a career-low 10 sacks all season, the Globe and Mail’s David Naylor writes.
Manning is such a competitor that he hates to leave games. In the Los Angeles Times, Sam Farmer recounts the time Manning was knocked out of a game for one play in 2001 and it cost the Colts a victory.
Of course, the Colts are more than a one-man band. Younger players have made a huge difference for the Colts’ revamped offense. Age and cost forced Indianapolis to let Marvin Harrison go, but replacement receivers Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie have had wonderful seasons, ESPN’s John Clayton writes. Their significance to Manning’s offense grew as the season wore on, especially because one key Colts receiver, Anthony Gonzalez, missed the season with a knee injury. “The ability of Garcon and Collie to break tackles and get extra yards helped in the final two minutes of first halves — a span in which the Colts scored 79 points (including the playoffs) — and allowed Indianapolis to engineer seven fourth-quarter comebacks,” Clayton writes.
Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel chronicles Garcon’s unusual route to the NFL, one that included playing Division III football at Mount Union in Ohio.
USA Today’s Mike Lopresti catches up with former Mount Union quarterback Greg Micheli, who remembers Garcon as “a really quiet guy, but the exact opposite on the field, really fiery, going 100% every play.”
Collie isn’t the only rookie playing a big role in the Colts’ success. In the Sporting News, Dennis Dillon measures the impact Collie and four others have had, including running back Donald Brown.
So the Colts have offense galore, but they’ll need strong defense to contain Drew Brees and the high-flying Saints offense. In the Journal, Reed Albergotti notes that Indy’s defense, the second-smallest in the NFL, has dominated opponents recently. “The Colts have been getting smaller ever since before the 2002 season, when Tony Dungy became coach. Mr. Dungy, who coached the Colts through the 2008 season, used a ‘Tampa 2′ defensive scheme that divides the field into zones of coverage to blanket receivers,” Albergotti writes. “While this system required the team to have strong, physical safeties who could step up and make big hits on running backs, it relied on players who were — in general — better at getting themselves into proper position quickly and efficiently than having supreme physical ability.”
One such player is safety Melvin Bullitt, Tom Osborn writes in the San Antonio Express-News. Another is Antoine Bethea, a free safety who for years has proved doubters wrong, the Washington Post’s Les Carpenter writes.
Dwight Freeney is still listed as day-to-day for Sunday’s game. The defensive end, who had 13.5 sacks this season, is still suffering from a right-ankle injury that’s been slow to heal, meaning the versatile Raheem Brock could have an expanded role, the Philadelphia Daily News’s Paul Domowitch writes.
One player no one expected to see at the Super Bowl is kicker Matt Stover, whom the Colts signed after Adam Vinatieri needed arthroscopic knee surgery in October. Stover never could have hoped for so much after the Ravens declined to re-sign him and he contemplated retirement, the Baltimore Sun’s Ken Murray writes.
It’s a different story for Vinatieri, the clutch kicker who’s been forced to watch from the sidelines, the Boston Herald’s Karen Guregian reports.
In his first year, coach Jim Caldwell led the Colts to a 14-2 record. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Bernie Miklasz says Caldwell shares many traits of his predecessor, Tony Dungy. “The Caldwell personality is similar to the Dungy personality: cerebral, genuine, thoughtful, dignified,” Miklasz writes. “Caldwell had been on Dungy’s staff for seven seasons as quarterbacks coach, so the transition was comfortable for the players. With so many veteran leaders, the Colts don’t need a screamer to coach ‘em up.”
NBC Sports’s Mike Celizic says Caldwell’s in a no-win situation coaching the Colts. “The feeling is that he was handed the best team with the best quarterback. He’d darned well better win the Super Bowl,” Celizic writes. “And if he doesn’t, he’s going to spend the time between now and the start of next season explaining how he blew it. If the Colts lose, it won’t matter how it happens. Even if Peyton Manning throws four interceptions and fumbles twice, we’ll figure out a way to blame Caldwell for it.”
Quarterbacks and coaches get the accolades when a team wins, but the Colts have been a consistently great team for years because of team president Bill Polian, Gregg Doyel writes at CBS Sports, calling Polian “the best team-builder in NFL history.”
And as much as fans might not like to admit it in Baltimore, owner Jim Irsay has spiffed up the family name after it was cursed for years after the beloved Colts Mayflowered their way out of Baltimore to Indianapolis in 1984 thanks to his father, Robert. Jim Irsay is a model NFL owner, Gary Shelton writes in the St. Petersburg Times.
- <SMALL>February 4, 2010, 11:06 AM ET</SMALL>
Today the Fix continues its annual tradition of devoting most of a column to one Super Bowl team. Yesterday we gave the rundown on the Saints. Today we follow with the Colts, then go Super Bowl-free on Friday. We’ll also have bonus Fixes on Saturday and Sunday and running dispatches from Florida all week long.
There’s no debate Peyton Manning is headed for Canton when his playing days are over. He’s all but owned the NFL since the Indianapolis Colts drafted him first overall out of Tennessee in 1998: 50,128 yards passing on 4,232 completions, 366 touchdowns (and just 181 interceptions), four MVP awards, 10 Pro Bowl selections, more wins than any other quarterback in the past decade, and on and on.
<DL class="wp-caption alignleft caption-alignleft" style="WIDTH: 262px"><DT class=wp-caption-dt>
<DD class="wp-caption-dd wp-cite-dd" style="TEXT-ALIGN: right">Associated Press <DD class=wp-caption-dd style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">Right now, Peyton Manning has as many Super Bowl victories as Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson and Jeff Hostetler. </DD></DL>
But only after beating Chicago in Super Bowl XLI three years ago with an MVP performance did Manning elevate himself above other great NFL quarterbacks without a ring, including Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, Fran Tarkenton and Warren Moon. Manning is undoubtedly one of the best ever. But is he the best? We’ll have more evidence to answer that question Sunday.
“First, Manning has to lead his Indianapolis Colts past Drew Brees’ New Orleans Saints on Sunday in Super Bowl XLIV. That will take everything Manning’s got,” Edwin Pope writes in the Miami Herald. “Then he has to keep measuring up to — and maybe pass, literally speaking — the exploits of Terry Bradshaw, Fran Tarkenton, Joe Montana, Steve Young, Johnny Unitas, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, Bart Starr, Joe Namath, Roger Staubach, John Elway, Troy Aikman, Kurt Warner, and yes, Y.A. Tittle.”
In looking back only over the past 30 years, Sports Illustrated’s Ross Tucker can see why Manning’s a better quarterback than Montana or Tom Brady, and thinks there’s plenty of time for Manning to scorch the record books and snare a few more Lombardi trophies, too.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter says another Super Bowl puts Manning in Michael Jordan territory.
One reason why Manning’s so efficient and effective — and can perform at that level Sunday — is that the Colts protect him very well, allowing a career-low 10 sacks all season, the Globe and Mail’s David Naylor writes.
Manning is such a competitor that he hates to leave games. In the Los Angeles Times, Sam Farmer recounts the time Manning was knocked out of a game for one play in 2001 and it cost the Colts a victory.
Of course, the Colts are more than a one-man band. Younger players have made a huge difference for the Colts’ revamped offense. Age and cost forced Indianapolis to let Marvin Harrison go, but replacement receivers Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie have had wonderful seasons, ESPN’s John Clayton writes. Their significance to Manning’s offense grew as the season wore on, especially because one key Colts receiver, Anthony Gonzalez, missed the season with a knee injury. “The ability of Garcon and Collie to break tackles and get extra yards helped in the final two minutes of first halves — a span in which the Colts scored 79 points (including the playoffs) — and allowed Indianapolis to engineer seven fourth-quarter comebacks,” Clayton writes.
Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel chronicles Garcon’s unusual route to the NFL, one that included playing Division III football at Mount Union in Ohio.
USA Today’s Mike Lopresti catches up with former Mount Union quarterback Greg Micheli, who remembers Garcon as “a really quiet guy, but the exact opposite on the field, really fiery, going 100% every play.”
Collie isn’t the only rookie playing a big role in the Colts’ success. In the Sporting News, Dennis Dillon measures the impact Collie and four others have had, including running back Donald Brown.
So the Colts have offense galore, but they’ll need strong defense to contain Drew Brees and the high-flying Saints offense. In the Journal, Reed Albergotti notes that Indy’s defense, the second-smallest in the NFL, has dominated opponents recently. “The Colts have been getting smaller ever since before the 2002 season, when Tony Dungy became coach. Mr. Dungy, who coached the Colts through the 2008 season, used a ‘Tampa 2′ defensive scheme that divides the field into zones of coverage to blanket receivers,” Albergotti writes. “While this system required the team to have strong, physical safeties who could step up and make big hits on running backs, it relied on players who were — in general — better at getting themselves into proper position quickly and efficiently than having supreme physical ability.”
One such player is safety Melvin Bullitt, Tom Osborn writes in the San Antonio Express-News. Another is Antoine Bethea, a free safety who for years has proved doubters wrong, the Washington Post’s Les Carpenter writes.
Dwight Freeney is still listed as day-to-day for Sunday’s game. The defensive end, who had 13.5 sacks this season, is still suffering from a right-ankle injury that’s been slow to heal, meaning the versatile Raheem Brock could have an expanded role, the Philadelphia Daily News’s Paul Domowitch writes.
One player no one expected to see at the Super Bowl is kicker Matt Stover, whom the Colts signed after Adam Vinatieri needed arthroscopic knee surgery in October. Stover never could have hoped for so much after the Ravens declined to re-sign him and he contemplated retirement, the Baltimore Sun’s Ken Murray writes.
It’s a different story for Vinatieri, the clutch kicker who’s been forced to watch from the sidelines, the Boston Herald’s Karen Guregian reports.
In his first year, coach Jim Caldwell led the Colts to a 14-2 record. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Bernie Miklasz says Caldwell shares many traits of his predecessor, Tony Dungy. “The Caldwell personality is similar to the Dungy personality: cerebral, genuine, thoughtful, dignified,” Miklasz writes. “Caldwell had been on Dungy’s staff for seven seasons as quarterbacks coach, so the transition was comfortable for the players. With so many veteran leaders, the Colts don’t need a screamer to coach ‘em up.”
NBC Sports’s Mike Celizic says Caldwell’s in a no-win situation coaching the Colts. “The feeling is that he was handed the best team with the best quarterback. He’d darned well better win the Super Bowl,” Celizic writes. “And if he doesn’t, he’s going to spend the time between now and the start of next season explaining how he blew it. If the Colts lose, it won’t matter how it happens. Even if Peyton Manning throws four interceptions and fumbles twice, we’ll figure out a way to blame Caldwell for it.”
Quarterbacks and coaches get the accolades when a team wins, but the Colts have been a consistently great team for years because of team president Bill Polian, Gregg Doyel writes at CBS Sports, calling Polian “the best team-builder in NFL history.”
And as much as fans might not like to admit it in Baltimore, owner Jim Irsay has spiffed up the family name after it was cursed for years after the beloved Colts Mayflowered their way out of Baltimore to Indianapolis in 1984 thanks to his father, Robert. Jim Irsay is a model NFL owner, Gary Shelton writes in the St. Petersburg Times.
