Post-Draft, Pre-Everything Else Power Rankings Top 5

I can only analyze Marvin Harrison’s lack of production based upon the 16 games he played. Of course, the difference is I am using stats whereas you are using “DVOA vodoo” which is really more like “DVOA poo poo” in my opinion.

With your “DVOA vodoo” you are attempting to find statistical trends based upon small sample sizes and that was my point. With Harrison I am analyzing his playoff career which consist of 16 playoff games which is a lot of playoff games for one players career. I am not attempting to find “trend lines” nor am I attempting to see how Harrison “matches up” against specific teams as DVOA tries to do. I am just analyzing his playoff stats and by any measure Marvin Harrison has very mediocre playoff stats.

So please Shake, cut it with the “gotcha!” game. Its sad.

I like Edge, but can’t give him any excuses either.

Really, if no one can honestly place blame on Marvin, Peyton, Edge or Reggie, then you all must either think the O-Line needs to be demolished or there is an underlying issue with Dungy or Tom Moore that everyone is unwilling to accept.

I think it’s a combination of all the above.

It’s okay to be a fan of a team and still be critical of some of the players or coaches.

That’s actually the cornerstone of my counter argument. Do you consider Peyton one of, if not the best QB of all time? Well, his stats declined more than Marvin’s did. I’m pointing out the double standard and the fact that scapegoating Marvin for being underwhelming in the playoffs is DEFINITELY putting on rose colored glasses because (and not specifically you) several people have turned the loss of Marvin around to actually be a BONUS to the team that makes us better. I don’t care how much you think Marvin “didn’t step up” in the playoffs, losing him is definitely a loss. The only reason it’s not as MUCH of one, is because we essentially lost him in 2006. Although he did suffer a major knee injury and put forth the effort to rehab it to attempt to come back to help us in the playoffs. He didn’t have to do that, and his injury still plagued him throughout 2008, that shows you how bad it was. If anything, although he fumbled a ball and didn’t do very well this year, he increased my respect for him.

It’s easy to pay homage to someone in their prime putting up phenomenal performances, it’s another to watch that player get hurt and struggle to continue to contribute to a team even when he doesn’t have to. It may not look as good on a stat page, and they may clearly have declined, but in my opinion, that right there adds more to the argument that Marvin Harrison is the best receiver not named Jerry Rice to have ever played the game. I have more respect for a man who was demonized in the media, at the age where his body is breaking down, and had a significant injury to himself for doing what was required on a play that wasn’t even a pass than someone who has 10 playoff TDs and is completely selfish.

You either didn’t see, or didn’t remember watching the 2006 version of America’s Game where Peyton said the reason why the decided to run it 3 times in a row to beat the Patriots was because Marvin Harrison, not Peyton Manning or Joseph Addai or any lineman, said they should run the ball.

Are we better off now without Marvin Harrison on the team? Absolutely not. Even though it is time for Anthony Gonzalez to step up and show why he was a first round pick, not having Marvin on the team is NOT a good thing. The simple truth is that the Colts, as a team, are far better as a whole than any team Marvin Harrison was on prior to the 2005 season when the “new” players began to play like veterans and the entire offense wasn’t generated by either passing to Marvin or passing to setup the run to Marvin. Yes, I am definitely ecstatic that the team has gotten to the point that Marvin could be expendable (even if I’d rather him not be) and still be able to move forward. However, our success in the playoffs while he struggled to return and never quite did, only proves how amazing he truly was. The Colts made it to the playoffs and had arguably one of the best decades of success in football because one of the best receivers to ever play the game had one of the bester QBs to ever play the game join him on a terrible team. It’s easy to look at the team the Colts have become and forget that they were a terrible team with a bleak outlook. We WERE the Detroit Lions in the late 90s.

Peyton Manning has said himself that he definitely played like a rookie in 99 and it was rather obvious. So how did we suddently go from, as Peyton puts it, a “Circle Team” to a dominant powerhouse without ever getting better on defense, and not having near the talent we do today? Well, yes we drafted Edge, but Marshall actually had 88 more rush/receivng yards in 98 than Edge had in 99, and Marshall went on to a Hall of Fame career and arguably one of the best four year stretch in history. So I can honestly say that while Edge is indeed phenomenal, he wasn’t an “upgrade” over what we currently had in Faulk. And we didn’t draft another player I would consider significant, and a main contributer to a team that consistently makes the playoffs until 2001 with Reggie wayne, and he didn’t begin contributing to the offense significantly until 2003 or 2004. Stokley’s first significant year was 2004, Dallas was drafted in 2003 and made a significant jump in production in 2004. So what was it? We went from 19th to 3rd in offense without upgrading our RB, we don’t have anyone BUT Marvin and Peyton, Edge goes out and we apparently don’t miss a beat with Rhodes, and the main reason we lose the majority of our games is lack of defense over offense.

So how on Earth do we go from the Detroit Lions to one of the strongest teams in the NFL and go to 5 post seasons in 6 years without almost the entirety of the players that make us feared today weren’t on the team? I think it’s pretty obvious at this point. It was also pretty obvious to the playoff teams and not quite the development of the atomic bomb to figure “I wonder what happens if we double and triple cover Marvin Harrison and see if the rest of their team steps up.” Well, they DID double and triple cover him and WE LOST. When you can look at ONE player and see what happens to your team when you take him out of the equation as starkly as what happened to the Colts pre 2005, saying his decrease in production in the playoffs takes away from his legacy is so far from the truth.

The 2009 Colts became the team they are today because of two players. Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison. Without both, not one, this team would not be who they are, nor would they have been able to amass the talent they were capable of because they never HAD to go back to the draft to take two of the hardest positions to get right and plague teams until they do get it right. Without Marvin Harrison, Marshall Faulk would never have been traded and Edge would not have been taken, a receiver most likely would have. Reggie Wayne would not have been able to develop as a second option under the radar and his first three seasons of 345, 716, and 838 yards as a first round receiver would have had the fans up in arms and probably would have labeled him a bust.

More would have been asked for from our entire team if Marvin wasn’t there to provide them the security blanket to build the team under both he and Peyton. Dogging a guy because he didn’t perform in the playoffs, when one of the most significant reasons we were in the playoffs at all was due to his contributions, is looking at it from a skewed angle developed from years of “dissapointing” one and dones. I’ve written about it before, but let me state it again; We were not the Super Bowl TEAM we needed to be prior to 2005. We had Marvin Harrison in his prime catching balls from Peyton Manning in his prime and several other players who you probably can’t name, or will quickly forget in a few years.

The only argument I can see as clearly black and white was that Marvin Harrison was born a few years too early. However, without what Marvin Harrison, Polian would not have had the knowledge of having THE guy without him. It’s very rare to find a receiver that produces no matter what the situation. In a way, and this isn’t taking anything away from Peyton, the Indianapolis Colts were built around Marvin Harrison. Many times you see teams flash for a year and snap back to underwhelming teams, but the Indianapolis Colts turned it around to become one of the most feared teams in the 21st century. And the first person drafted that was a significant reason for that success that was still on that team in 2006, 10 seasons after he was drafted and underrated his entire career was Marvin Harrison. The most significant years in the Colts draft were 1996, 1997, and 1998 with Marvin, Glenn, and Peyton. You could dog every single one of them for their lack of success in the playoffs, but without those 3 players, we would never have been able to accomplish what we have, and the name Peyton Manning may not have been synonymous with Hall of Fame, or one of the greatest to ever play the game. Without Marvin Harrison we may still be a middle of the road, struggle to be .500 who made the same mistake they did in 2002 when David Carr and Joey Harrington were taken just as Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf were in 1998.

Players mean more to their teams than just stats, and I consider what man does over the course of 176 games and what he allowed the team to do around him as much more than teams game planning to completely shut him down and our failure to adjust, or simply not having the talent to win without him as just as much a sign of what he meant and how good he truly was as an extra 200 yards and 4-5 TDs. And yes, that’s pretty much all it would take for this whole nonsense about Marvin might not being as good as the best receiver not named Jerry Rice to what it should be; the sad farewell to one of the greatest players to wear the blue and white. That his legacy has already been questioned is sad to see. 12.5 yards per game and a few extra TDs.

Where did I get too “heavy”?

because the weapons get his credit. But losing in the postseason is his underachieving, despite how those weapons played?

This all gets old. Manning is a choke artiswt, or Dungy is an underachiever, blah, blah, blah. We have had a great team with great people at the helm for years now. I miss Dungy, and I hope his latest “disciple” (Caldwell) fares as well as a couple others of his (Lovie and Tomlin). Time will tell.

This bothers me. Just becuase I feel how I feel about my team, that does not make me a lesser fan, rather it makes me a realist. I know that last years team was so injured that it had NO BUSINESS winning 12 games. As a fan, I reveled in and enjoyed each and every one of them. It was a great ride. However, I knew that this team overacheived, so I was nowhere near as upset when they went out in the playoffs in the first round as I was in 05, 07 or even 99(pre-Dungy). They were simply not as good as their record indicated last year.

By the way, the Colts whole deal of having weapons every year is also so overblown. They had weapons offensively yes. However, Reggie Wayne has become a great player because of Manning, as has Dallas Clark and even Stokley. The only constant great player was Harrison. The defense, which is as important if not more than the offense, was never that great. Dungy made it into a decent unit, and they won 12 games when they were an 11-10 win team (03-04-06). In 05 and 07 it was dungy’s coaching on defense that made them a 14 and a 13 win team. In my opinion, winning 13 games with offensive line injuries all year, no Marvin Harrison, Dallas Clark and Anthony Gonzalez missing significant time, Dwight Freeney missing significant time, is overacheiving, as was the case in 2007. When this team had its hopeful starting five o-lineman playing for like three games, with Marvin at 50%, Manning not at 100%, injuries to Kelvin Hayden, Bob Sanders, and Marlin Jackson, Gary Brackett and the loss of their top DT, winning 12 games is overacheiving, as was the case in 08. You can go think that this team continously underacheived. That Manning and Dungy are playoff chokers all you want. I’ll believe what I know to be true.