And Then There Were None

While I'd like to believe that the Colts decision to give up on Sunday against the Jets was their way of admitting that they really did lose to the Pats when the refs blew the call on the "fourth and 2" play, but somehow I doubt it.

Jim Caldwell (Indianapolis Head Coach) decided to thumb his nose at history. The Colts are too good to make an attempt at the undefeated season. It's below them. All that matters is winning the Super Bowl.

I have a few opinions about this. (Is anyone surprised?)

First, that's moronic. Only one team has ever had a perfect 16 game regular season. The 2007 New England Patriots. Every year somebody wins the Super Bowl. Who won the 1995 Super Bowl? What about 1982? 1977? What team went undefeated through the regular season? That's what I thought.

Perhaps Coach Caldwell was attempting to alleviate the pressure of going undefeated. All succeeded in doing was put even more pressure on the team to win the Super Bowl. It would be understandable if they went 18-1. Other teams have done that. One team in particular suffered their only loss in the big game. Now, the Colts have purposefully lost "to keep their stars healthy so they can win it all." Guess what. Now they really need to win it all.

What else has Coach Caldwell done by benching his starters? He's created controversy where there was none. No one was debating if they should play everyone or not. The question was will they. If they played everyone, and won, no one would have faulted them. In fact, Coach Caldwell has now created a situation where they absolutely must lose to the Bills this week. If they leave their starters in, why did they pull them last week? If they pull their starters and their scrubs are able to defeat the Bills, then they should have left Peyton in last week so their perfect season would still be intact. For last week to make any sense, the must lose this week.

The Colts claim that the perfect season wasn't of importance to them. They wanted to hold the record for most consecutive regular season wins (Which they don't, due to their loss to the Patriots this year), and they wanted to hold the record for most wins in a decade. If these records were truly important, and not lip service after the fact, then they should have wanted to beat the Jets to add another tally to both records. They didn't, which leads me to believe the Colts brass were struggling to find any reason as to why they made their terrible decision.

Those (few) that defend the decision claim that the coach would be under even more fire if he'd left the starters in and someone (Peyton) got hurt late in the game. Why do people assume this is going to happen only at the end of a game that doesn't mean anything? Is Peyton immune to injury at all other times? If the logic is we don't want him hurt during a meaningless time in the game then any time the Colts are up by three touchdowns (which wasn't very often this year) he should be out of the game. Funny, I didn't see him out at any other time this year. I guess the teams logic is completely and utterly faulty. But that isn't very surprising.

What did Peyton think of the decision? I don't care what he said verbally after the game. I care about what he said non-verbally during the game. I've never seen anyone out of the game leave their helmet on with the chin strap fastened longer than Peyton Manning. He didn't toss on a Colt's ball cap or one of those knit hats that have the team color on the bottom and fade to black near the top. He didn't relax on the bench like one pleased that he was finally out of the game. He walked the sidelines like a kid in time out, like that star player in little league that has to sit an inning so that everyone can play. "Come on coach, put me in! Put me in coach! I wanna play!" I think even Mr. Manning agrees with me: Coach Caldwell made the wrong decision. Period.

On a final thought, some people are pointing to the utter collapse of the Colts once Peyton was benched as proof that he ought to be the MVP this year. This, too, is an ignorant belief. It would be one thing if Peyton were the only player taken out of the game and Painter failed while sharing the field with Wayne, Clark, and Adai. But no, they were also riding the pine. As were some of the Colts' starting offensive linemen. If this is the evidence that Peyton is MVP worthy, then so is every other starter that was removed in the third quarter. If anybody is the MVP of the Colts, it's Dallas Clark. No one has been more clutch for them this year!

Bottom line: Wrong decision to lay down and die for the Colts. This caused controversy, created a situation where they must enter the playoffs having lost their last two games, and adds even more pressure on the team to win the big game, which isn't going to happen.