Saints 31, Colts 17

Give him the ball and three minutes and I have to fear that he will score. Gotta respect that.

But I don’t have to respect EVERYTHING about him as a player. That whole audible at every snap bologna bugs the hell out of me. By the admission of his own offensive linemen, half the time Peyton is just bullshng with his audibles. It’s all supposed to be about how smart he is, and how much of a master of the game situation he is. Nobody talks about how his need to burn his own 4 – 6 seconds off of every play clock forces the entire coaching system of getting plays and information from the booth down to the huddle to jam backwards up the command chain. It increases the margin of error, increases the risk of delay of game penalties, increases the risk of false starts, and reduces some of the critical thinking skills in game situations to be added by the staff.

Meanwhile, NFL defenses are not stupid. They know damn good and well that Peyton is going to be reacting and/or bullshng. If you watch the tape on the game yesterday, watch how the defense actually listens to Manning and reacts. Manning might have taken the Saints defense by total surprise twice in the whole game. Meanwhile, the Vilma adjustment back into coverage against Collie showed how well they were syncing up with Manning’s antics. That final pick to seal the deal was really just the Saints baiting Manning and biding their time. Manning’s mumblings did not change the fact that the Saints knew the play called was a pass, they knew that the order of pression would go to Wayne first or second, and they knew a blitz would force the pass early. Porter jumped the route (although, yeah, Wayne’s cut was slow and clumsy and made Porter’s job easy).

17 points. They held the Colts to 17 points. But the entire planet had to watch about 5 total minutes of Manning’s Masterful Audibilizing. And nobody has the cajones to call him out on it.

Seriously. Just play some football. I have long been tempted to put together a parody of Manning going through his daily life and everybody else putting him through doses of his own medicine in every simple interaction. Just to make the point.