Peyton can’t prove Irsay wrong until February, 2014
“Peyton Manning cannot simply march into Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday and make Irsay’s criticisms go away. He can’t prove the old man wrong with a victory in a relatively meaningless regular season game, regardless of how it’s hyped.”
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They call the place the Colts play “the House that Peyton Built”, not “Jim’s place”. But Peyton doesn’t live there anymore. Andrew Luck is the future of the Colts franchise, which Jim Irsay inherited from his father (who famously moved it out of Baltimore in the middle of the night on March 29, 1984).
Manning returns to play Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday night for the first time since Jets kicker Nick Folk nailed a last-second field goal to eject Manning’s Colts from the 2010 AFC playoffs. This time number eighteen will be dressed in the Orange and Blue but one thing will not have changed – Manning’s propensity to fall short in the NFL post-season, when Championships are on the line.
Regardless of the margin by which the Broncos emerge victorious in the nationally-televised tilt, Denver’s quarterback will continue to carry the stigma of his frequent playoff losses until he gets puts a ring on Pat Bowlen’s finger to match the one Jim Irsay proudly displays. The Colts’ owner took Manning to task this week through comments he made in an interview with Jarrett Bell of USA Today. “”You make the playoffs 11 times,” Irsay said, “and you’re out in the first round seven out of 11 times.”
Peyton Manning cannot simply march into Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday and make Irsay’s criticisms go away. He can’t prove the old man wrong with a victory in a relatively meaningless regular season game, regardless of how it’s hyped. Manning must take this Broncos team to the playoffs and, in the wind, snow and cold, win. He has to win at least two crucial post-season games and at least one more ring before Irsay’s words will “ring” untrue.
Until then, Manning legacy – and Irsay’s criticisms – will continue to hold water. He is considered one of the great playoff chokers in professional sports history. Yes, Peyton Manning’s Colts won the Super Bowl in 2006; but the shine of that win has dulled with time. Since then he has been beaten in the first round twice by the Chargers, lost in the Super Bowl to the Saints, been eliminated by the Jets, sat out a season with an aching neck and led his Broncos team to a soul-crushingly unlikely home loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
Jim Irsay was ill-advised to make the comments that he made about his former quarterback. It’s likely that he will watch Andrew Luck and the Colts get blown out on Sunday by a Broncos team fueled by a desire to prove him wrong. But Peyton Manning cannot accomplish that in one Sunday. It’s going to take at least two more crucial Sundays in January and one in February to do that.
