These last two weeks have made it painfully clear to the rest of the nation what we as Colts fans have known for a long time: Jeff Saturday is a spectacular player. 

Now, as he (knocks on wood) makes his return this week, we know we'll start to see the offense return to the form that we've come to know and love for most of the last decade (that's not a prediction that we'll win on Sunday, just saying that offense should look more in sync than they have the last few weeks). 

During some highlight packages in the next few weeks some sportscaster is going to go "Boy, do you think the Colts missed Jeff Saturday?" and everyone will laugh and then after that, he'll probably go back to the shadows and do his thing as well as anyone in the NFL, without the publicity that players at the star positions get.  Jeff will say that he's fine with that, and while I appreciate his humility, I personally think it's time that we give the man some well-deserved recognition.

To do that, I want to go back to Jeff's finest play, "The Block."  Like a modern-day, gridiron version of Noah Moses himself, Jeff Saturday opened a wide path to help deliver his people to the promised land.

Eerie resemblance?  I'd say so.

Anyways, a lot of us just see the block and think "Oh, that's great!" but we never really take the time to appreciate how hard that was to do.  Consider everything that led up to that play.

The Colts had run 75 plays before that Saturday made that fateful block.  That's 75 snaps, 75 times squatting way too long while Peyton calls every audible in the universe, 75 snaps where he had to look\ right into the defensive line and make the necessary adjustments on the fly, and 75 times dealing with Peyton's exceptionally warm hands.  Most of us probably couldn't even keep the center's stance for 75 seconds, much less 75 plays.

Not only did he have to deal with all that, but there was a guy by the name of Vince Wilfork lining up directly across from him on every single play.  Just in case you weren't sure, Vince Wilfork is a pretty big guy.  So big, in fact, that I couldn't even fit him in this photo:

So not only did he have to take care of all of his normal center duties 75 times, he also had to deal with someone 30 pounds bigger than him on every single snap.  Yet, when it came time for snap #76, Jeff didn't just hold his ground, he plowed him over.

The things that Saturday does every Sunday never show up in a boxscore, a highlght reel, or a sneaker commercial, but the Colts wouldn't be where they are today as one of the best teams in the league without his contributions.  I'm sure an injury isn't the way he wanted to show how important he was to the team, but that's the way it goes.  Now that he's back. let's not let his contributions fade back into obscurity.