Redskins at Colts: Giving Peyton His Due

Washington Redskins (2-4) at Indianapolis Colts (5-0)
4:15 p.m. RCA Dome
Again, I’d like to apologize to the five people who read this thing for the lateness of the post. I’ve been busy at work, and it won’t get any better the next couple of weeks. My hours are going to be different than normal, and I may leave the company completely for a better position elsewhere very shortly. We’ll see. Regardless, my schedule is hectic. And it’s the wrong time for this to be happening with football season in full swing and college basketball season right around the corner. Oh well.

The one thing it appears I won’t have to concern myself with is talking about the Redskins postseason hopes. They’re pretty much done. The Skins had a much more favorable schedule in the second half of the season (after their bye week) but they’re most likely going to limp into it at 2-5. More on that in a second.

Where to begin talking about last week’s game? I really don’t know. Was it more embarrassing to watch Vince Young, with a gimpy ankle, look like a savvy veteran in only his third NFL start? Or was it worse to watch washed-up Travis Henry rush for almost 200 yards? Or perhaps the low point was the Redskins inability to rush the ball against one of the worst rushing defenses?

I think the most embarrassing part about last week’s game was the fact that the Redskins, a team loaded with talented veterans, were beaten by a team that has 31 players with less than three years of NFL experience. In other words, the Redskins were beaten by a bunch of winless nobodies, at home, in a game they couldn’t afford to lose.

The coaching was bad. The execution of the play calling was worse. Why the Redskins ran the ball fewer than ten times in the second half is beyond my reasoning. Why the Redskins only attacked downfield once against a terrible secondary is perplexing. And why the Redskins still couldn’t get off the field on third down and long situations against Tennessee’s offense is unexplainable.

So now the Redskins have to go on the road and take on Indianapolis. And let’s make no mistake about this. The Colts are still the best team in the NFL. Much better than New England. Much better than Chicago. Leaps ahead of Seattle or Denver or Carolina. And they will be the third team to play the Redskins following their bye week (By the way, the Redskins are the only team in the NFL that has to play three teams coming off bye weeks. Most teams only have to do it once or twice, and a few don’t have to play any rested teams all season). So the Colts have had an extra week to game plan for the Redskins. Not as if they needed it.

(Sidebar: I’m sitting here watching the Alabama-Tennessee game. I think the color commentator’s name is Gary Blackledge. He has said twice “This is where Vols’ quarterback Erik Ainge has to earn his money.” If Ainge is earning money, then Tennessee has a serious problem. I don’t know why I included this; I guess I’m easily distracted.)

The Colts have a great offensive line. They have three dangerous receivers who can all be used as possession receivers and as deep threats. The combination of Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne is among the best receiver tandems in NFL history. They’re right up there with Lynn and Stallworth, Rice and Taylor, Clayton and Duper or Reed and Lofton. When you figure in Brandon Stokley, this may be the best triple threat since the Redskins’ infamous “Posse” that included Art Monk, Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders. And you can’t forget about the Colts’ tight end Dallas Clark and both of their running backs are receiving threats as well.

And what named haven’t I mentioned yet? Probably the most obvious one. The Colts are quarterbacked by some guy named Peyton Manning. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? You can feed me all the B.S. about Tom Brady and other quarterbacks, but I’d still go with Peyton to win me a game (maybe not a playoff game necessarily, but any other regular season game).

Regardless of who you root for or what you think of Manning’s postseason record, there’s no denying his talent and it’s hard to argue that he’s not currently the best quarterback in the league. In fact, he may already be one of the top 10 quarterbacks of all-time. I know he hasn’t won a Super Bowl, but when you talk top three quarterbacks of all-time, most people would include Dan Marino. In fact, all Manning has to do is win one Super Bowl, and by the time his career ends, the only quarterback who will be considered better than Manning in my book will that Joe Montana character.

A lot of people hate Manning because he’s successful. But why go after Manning? He’s legitimately good. He’s not a product of an outstanding offensive system (Brady), he doesn’t seem better because of all the talented players around him (McNabb, pre-2006) nor does he happen to be a decent quarterback playing with an outstanding defense (Roethlisberger).

Here’s how I measure up quarterbacks. Let’s say that Manning played for New England and Brady played for the Colts. The Colts wouldn’t be nearly as good with Brady and I’d bet that New England would have won more than three Super Bowls with Manning. In fact, I’d say that with Manning, the Patriots most likely would have won the past five Super Bowls. Do you think Manning would have lost to Jake Plummer and Denver in the playoffs last season? I don’t think so.

I’ll be honest; I’m a huge Manning fan. I love the way he plays. I love the fact that he basically calls every play, a rarity in the NFL now a days (I’d love to see Brady have to deal with calling all those audibles, it would be ten kinds of ugly). But I really like Manning because it seems that everyone outside of Indiana absolutely hates him and refuses to acknowledge how special his talent is. So I'm going to root for him. Manning is a once in a generation quarterback that football fans are missing because they’d rather slam him instead.

This is only the third time the Redskins have had to face Peyton. They lost in the last second in 1999 at Indianapolis and they beat him in 2002 on a Sunday Night game at FedEx. But all this was before the Colts became the most dominant regular season team. The Colts became a juggernaut during the 2004 season, and haven’t stopped winning games since.

As we’ve seen the past few weeks, the Redskins defense can’t stop anyone. They gave up 25 points to Tennessee. How many do you think Indy is going to score? Probably a lot more. The Colts can’t really run the football with Joseph Addai and Dominic Rhodes, but they don’t need to. Manning can put it up 40 to 50 times a game and easily score 30 or more. The return of Shawn Springs to the defensive backfield is coupled with the loss of Carlos Rogers due to a broken thumb. So the Redskins are still stuck with having only one capable cornerback and one capable safety (Sean Taylor). Springs and Taylor can’t cover the whole field and cover all the weapons Indy possesses. The only way to rattle Manning is to get some pressure on him, but the Skins defense doesn’t blitz anymore and the front four have no chance to get pressure on him straight up against the Colts line. So that’s out of the question.

The only other way to stop the Colts offense is to keep them off the field. There are two ways to do this. The first way is to hire Northern Colorado punter Mitch Cozad and turn him loose in the RCA Dome before the game. The second way, and the only way that will end with no Redskins’ personnel in jail, is to run the football.

Unless the Redskins run the ball effectively at least 30 times, they have no chance to win. Throw away that game plan that was used against Tennessee. We’re paying Clinton Portis gobs of money, so let’s give him a chance to prove why he has a large contract. The Redskins can’t afford to have three and outs against Indy, so they need to run the ball, control the clock, keep Manning and company off the field, and punch the ball in the end zone if they get inside the 20. Field goals are as worthless as a Canadian dollar against the Colts.

The Colts defense is beatable, and the Redskins can get their fair share of points. I’m not advocating a shootout with Mark Brunell taking on Manning, but let’s be honest here, the Colts are going to put up a lot of points. So the Redskins have to match them. But they have to do so with a ground attack that eats up clock and keeps Manning on the sideline. The more Manning is on the field, the more the Colts will win by.