Jason Cole still doesn't watch football games, continues to write incorrect nonsense about Peyton Manning and the Colts

or the awards that are being voted on today and announced tomorrow??

continues to talk about Peyton “struggling” against 3-4 defenses. A record of 11-1 proves that he no longer has a problem with them. I wish I could find a job that pays six figures where I can throw out incorrect facts without getting in trouble with my bosses.

“Their one loss against a 3-4 team in two years was in overtime against the Chargers in the playoffs, which saw Peyton Manning throw for 310 yards, 1 TD, and no turnovers.”

…. and no opportunity to return to the field in OT.

But I have to say, this made me laugh

“Jason just continues to utter the same mindless trash. I guess he must feel that if he says it enough, or writes it enough, that it will become fact.”

Because that’s exactly how I’ve felt about BBS over the last while, repeatedly pushing his opinions on everyone here and calling people who disagree idiots or d-bags that know nothing about football and should be dismissed.

Well, there’s a couple issues with the 3-4 problem.

1) The best defensive teams in football tend to run 3-4 defenses.
2) The perception is that Manning isn’t that good against 3-4 defenses, due to his playoff struggles against Pittsburgh, San Diego, and New England (which are usually less a case of Manning playing poorly, and more some external variable), who have combined to exit the Colts from the playoffs for the last 5 consecutive exits.
3) Obviously, with an 11-1 recent record, it’s not true.

Manning’s playoff struggles are well documented, but ill defined. It’s easy to point to the Colts losing to “inferior” teams, but generally hard to pinpoint why. This is where most journalists struggle; they lack the depth of knowledge of the Colts, and football in general, to say things like “Manning’s offensive line might as well not even block.” or “The Colts are getting zero pressure without Dwight Freeney” or “Wow, Scifres is absolutely destroying the Colts with these punts”, and so on and so forth.

Long story short, there’s no great story in random events. It’s easier to make one up that fits most of the facts and run with it.

I’m glad, because he’s usually wrong about everything.

Would have 4200 yards and 32 or 33 TDs against a full schedule of 3-4 defenses while the Colts go 14-2 or 15-1.

is that defense isnt the only thing that wins games.

A 3-4 defense is going to pay a lot of money to their NT, in general (they are unique, and hard to find a 2-gap fatass that can be athletic enough to play the NT in a 3-4). They are going to pay good money for safeties and cornerbacks. You’re going to be playing a lot of man or a lot of zones in zone blitzes, either way, in a 3-4, there’s more of a premium for CBs than in, say, a tampa 2 where you’re basically looking at the QB the whole time. And finally, the 3-4 team is going to spend a lot of money on their LBers, they want LBers that can do it all: rush the passer, tackle the running back, and do some covering. They save money on DEs, because its not the DE job to rush the passer in a 3-4, but, in general, thats what they are spending money on.

So what will a 3-4 team thrive on on offense? Well, if you’re paying your defense a lot, what can you do well for cheap on offense? Run the ball. RBs seem to be a dime a dozen, you don’t need to use a first round draft pick to find one that can run. OL can be found in a lot of places. You need a QB, obviously. But you’re saving money on receivers. Blocking tight ends are cheaper than, say, Dallas Clark or Antonio Gates, so you’re saving money there (although not too much).

So back in 03 and 04 and 05 when the Colts had problem with 3-4 teams on offense, their defense also had problem with the one thing 3-4 teams usually do well on the other side of the ball: run.

It was a perfect storm of harder-than-normal to deal with defense vs piercing weapon to your light armor offense.