Manningless Colts About to Audition

How many times have you heard someone slag the 52 players on the Indianapolis Colts who are not Peyton Manning. There have probably been far too many to count. Sure there’ve been compliments directed at Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis, Bob Sanders when he was actually playing and the occasional positive mention of the offensive line, but for the most part the team has always been portrayed as the beneficiaries of the presence of Manning.

The biggest targets of the criticism have always been the players filling the so-called ‘skill positions’ on offence. The running backs, starting with Edgerrin James, were always better than they actually were because the Manning led passing game allowed them to be. The receivers have been represented as being just good to enough to be in the right place at the right time to benefit from the brilliance of Archie Manning’s kid. The most popular opinion is that with any other quarterback under centre they would be very ordinary receivers. They’ve been even more strongly depicted as such since Marvin Harrison left after the 2008 season. The group of receivers on last year’s team was skewered as being a talentless gang of lugs after Anthony Gonzalez and Dallas Clark, two players who’ve not always gotten a lot of respect, went down with injuries. Their replacements were absolutely savaged as complete hacks. A radio show suggested that a shopping cart with a mannequin arm attached to it could catch as many balls from Peyton Manning as Jacob Tamme, Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie, their replacements, caught.

I’m in no way suggesting Manning isn’t as good as people thinks he is. He’s definitely one of the 2 or 3 best quarterbacks of all time already, however, he’s not good enough to play with just any hack Bill Polian could pull out of a local bar and put in the lineup. The criticism’s always been over the top and probably unfair. Guys who make it to the NFL don’t get there by accident. You have to have talent to make it. Remember, only 1 out of every thousand who play college ball get to the NFL. That makes everyone in the league pretty elite.

Just how much of the success of the Colts has been due to number 18 is up for debate but we are about to get a lot better idea against the Houston Texans who the ‘other’ Indianapolis Colts really are.