"Alright, so we're straight on this? The perfect season stays alive, so long as you don't go 4-11 with an interception. Oh, and don't have a dastardly, dreadful, despicable, disastrous, dumbfounding, disgusting fumble that leads directly to a touchdown. Pretty much anything above an 11.2 QB rating will win the game. We cool? You need some water or something? You look miserable. OK, 'Quarterback' on 3..."
After 46 hours, equally split between solemn, peaceful reflection and meticulously skinning sockeye salmon amongst the Yup'ik people of Nushagak Bay in southwestern Alaska, I'm finally ready to discuss Sunday's historic ball tuck between the Colts and Jets.
Now I've always been told to let your extreme emotions subside before you write or say anything you may regret later (which was hammered home a few years ago with an ill-advised letter to a former boss), so after my initial rough draft included the words "fuck", "fucking", and "bullshit" a combined 34,657 times, I decided to take another day off.
I didn't need to.
I feel exactly the same way today as I felt right after the final second ticked off Sunday night. Remember when I went through the scenarios for the Colts season after the Jacksonville game? Here's how they look now:
Scenario A:
Indianapolis wins the Super Bowl with an 18-1 (oddly enough, the same record as the ill-fated 2007 Pats) or 17-2 record. I mean, that's what Polian and Caldwell say is the most important thing, right? To win the Super Bowl?
And yet even if that happens, won't history look at the Colts as the team that could have gone undefeated - but chose not to? I get it that you want to keep Manning and the other big dicks healthy. But isn't 16-0 reason enough to leave them in the game at least long enough to secure a victory? They were this close, with two very winnable games left on the schedule. They were winning in the third quarter. And still, they saw a chance at immortality circling the drain like a wedding ring in the shower and decided it wasn't worth it to reach down and pick it up. Hell, they took the ring off their own finger.
Scenario B:
The Colts get bounced in the second or third round of the playoffs, maybe even the Super Bowl, and this image from Monday's Star is what everyone remembers about this once-historic season:
Is there anything more pathetic than that? Manning obviously wanted to go back in. In Peyton's politically correct, toe-the-company-line world, leaving his helmet on was the loudest act of protest he could muster. And while I do agree that Manning shouldn't have gone back in (that would have made Caldwell look ridiculously stupid instead of ridiculously conservative and short-sighted), I don't think he should have pulled the plug that soon. Get a two score lead.
Yes, if Manning got hurt, Caldwell would be roasted. But if he came out and said, "Look, we've won a Super Bowl, but it's not every day (or decade, even) when an opportunity like this comes around, and we wanted it", wouldn't that be a reasonable excuse? I wanted it. I wanted it bad. I would have understood. I'd be pissed and bitching about Curtis the Menace starting in the playoffs, but I'd understand the logic.
Actually, come to think of it, why did Manning even start the third quarter at all? Or better yet, WHY DID THEY ALL PLAY THE JACKSONVILLE GAME? Everything was wrapped up then, too! Polian and Caldwell basically took Colts fans to dinner and a Ryan Reynolds movie, provided a sensual full-body massage in a candle-lit bathtub, kissed our necks while rubbing our chests, then got a phone call and left us in the hotel room, alone and aroused, for the rest of the night. "Blue" isn't the goofy Colts mascot, it's the shade of balls we all have this week, and will have for the rest of our lives.
Does anyone see a clear-cut winner in those scenarios? Obviously I still want them to win the Super Bowl, but isn't what they did (and more importantly, how they did it) an even bigger distraction than the pursuit of perfection was to begin with? How's morale doing right now? You can't tell me every single guy in that locker room is cool with that decision, at least on the inside. How's momentum (which Polian doesn't believe in)?
I know one thing: San Diego has none of these questions today.
Now? They HAVE to win the Super Bowl. Anything less is a monumental trainwreck of embarrassment.
I will NEVER forgive the Colts for this decision, even if they win their second Super Bowl in four years. Never. When Mike Doss slid off Michael Tuner's shoulder pads, effectively ending the 2005 13-0 campaign with an 80+ yard touchdown run, I felt like I'd been shot. It was devastating. How often does that chance come around?
Well, turns out more frequently than I thought. Now I wish it hadn't.
JETS COACH REX RYAN, BEFORE GETTING THE MEMO THAT A CERTAIN QUOTA OF FOOTBALL HEAD COACHES MUST HAVE ODDLY SHAPEN, OBESE BODIES
AFTER
ONE MORE STUPID RANT
Polian said on his radio show (predictably) that a perfect season was never one of the team's goals after breaking training camp. Caldwell said that too, and Dungy said it before him. Um, why the fuck not? Why ISN'T it a goal to win every game you play in?
And if that Polianspeak bullshit IS true, why would he say the 23-game regular season win streak and most wins in a decade WERE a big deal? So, two dopey records no one's gonna remember tomorrow are a big deal, but immortal 19-0 isn't?
And surely Manning's start streak will continue next week in Buffalo. I bet Wayne and Clark get the receptions they need in that first and only drive by the first-team. But why? Isn't there just as good of a chance of them getting hurt in that series as there was in the eighth series against the Jets?
Was Polian afraid of the Steelers making the playoffs? Was Rex Ryan and Jim Caldwell old drinking buddies? Too many questions surrounding a stupid game involving grown men and a ball.
I respect the Patriots going for it in 2007. I did then, and I especially do now. Sure, they lost, but it took a couple fluky things for that to happen. And Brady didn't get hurt, even while throwing it deep in many blowouts. He played all 16 games, and oddly enough, got hurt during the second drive of the first game the following season. You just never know.
But I do know one thing: the Colts blew it, and I will never forgive them for that.
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