Allow me to disagree with Peter King

The Colts didn’t make enough plays because they didn’t have the ball! That Garcon drop led to the Saints taking up the entire second quarter. Had he caught that ball the Colts would have continued that drive and taken away some of that momentum. I’m not blaming the loss on Garcon by any means, but that drive stalling and giving the ball back to Brees and not in Manning’s hands was crucial

He quit on his rout on the pick 6, and he dropped what would’ve been a TD. Who knows? If he catches that TD, maybe the Colts recover their own onside kick.

I agree with peter King. That catch more than likely would have resulted in a 17-3 lead and changed the complexion of the rest of the game. Almost exactly what happened with the Harrison fumble in the San Diego game 2 years ago.

BTW, isn;t it odd that the guy we got to replace Gonzo fumbled the onside kickoff, and the guy that replaced Gonzo in the starting lineup dropped the key pass.

Was Manning’s throw that turned into a pick six an “errant” throw? Porter just made a great play on the ball. The goat is Baskett on that onside kick, if anyone.

You heap all of these accolades on Peyton Manning. You give him the keys to the franchise, including this huge salary cap-busting contract. You run an offense that features his strengths and masks his weaknesses. Manning never scrambles for a TD, first down, or even so much as gets his uniform dirty because we can’t have the franchise QB getting hurt. You use all of your draft picks to surround him with talent (Clark, Brown, Addai, Gonzalez, Wayne) and even do a great job getting guys like Collie, Garcon and Dominic Rhodes, yet you bristle at the idea that Manning’s great stats have anything to do with the players around him and the system, calling it disrespect. And despite the fact that Manning has blown opportunities under several guys now (Philip Fulmer in college, who won a national title AFTER MANNING LEFT, Jim Mora, Tony Dungy, now Jim Caldwell) we always claim that had the playcalling/strategy/motivation been more perfect things would have turned out different.

AND NOW YOU ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO BLAME THE SUPER BOWL LOSS ON THE DEFENSE? THE DEFENSE THAT HAS VIRTUALLY NO FIRST ROUND DRAFT PICKS BECAUSE THEY ALL GO TO MANNING’S WRS AND RBS? THE DEFENSE WHICH NEVER SIGNS TOP FREE AGENTS OR EVEN KEEPS THEIR OWN FREE AGENTS BECAUSE OF CONTRACTS FOR MANNING AND THE GUYS THAT MANNING THROWS TO? THE DEFENSE WHERE KEY GUYS WERE HOBBLING AROUND INJURED? IT IS THEIR FAULT?

It is incredible. What is the point of even having a QB like Peyton Manning – or at least what you guys claim Peyton Manning to be – if your DEFENSE still has to go out and win games? Well I have news for you … the DEFENSE held the Saints to 24 points. Peyton Manning and THE OFFENSE only put 17 points on the board and gave 7 points away to the other team. And a lot of the real work ON OFFENSE was done by Joseph Addai, who scored 1 TD, and set up the other with his longest run of the year.

Maybe you can blame the coordinator and head coach for letting Manning throw the ball 45 times when they were running the ball for 5 yards per carry. But even that is based on the FALSE IDEA that Manning is this guy who can dominate a game THAT ACTUALLY COUNTS. I am not talking about dominating regular season games, especially against the lousy AFC South division, one where the Colts, Titans and Texans have 3 playoff victories between them in the last 10 years, two of them by the Titans in 2002 and 2003. I am talking about GAMES THAT REALLY MATTER.

Sure, the Colts made the Super Bowl. But who did they beat to get there? The Ravens and the Jets. Joe Flacco and Mark Sanchez, a 2nd year guy and a rookie at QB, neither of whom have anywhere near the talent on offense at their disposal that Manning does. Whoop tee do. Oh yeah, and the Colts were at home for both games. But leave Indy and play an equal or better team, and you get the same results as you always do.

Yes, Manning won a Super Bowl and was its MVP. But … Dominic Rhodes was the best offensive player. And the defense produced 5 turnovers! Manning truthfully only had 1 TD (and an INT) and an 81.8 passer rating in that game. Just like he only had an 88 passer rating with a TD and an INT in the last game.

Really, this nonsense has to end. Every year you guys claim that Manning is going to win it all for your team. And every year when it doesn’t happen, you blame the defense/the RBs/the WRs/the coaches. I have a suggestion … why not emphasize those areas of the team instead of making it the Peyton Manning show? Because the Peyton Manning show has only worked ONCE, and now that Manning is past his prime and there are a bunch of good young QBs in the AFC (no more Trent Dilfers winning Super Bowls) it isn’t going to work again.

People keep defending Manning in the Tom Brady comparison by saying “Brady had a better team around him.” Excuse me, that was because the Patriots were only paying Brady HALF (if even that much) of what Manning is making AND the Patriots didn’t take a WR or RB in the first round every other draft. So of course the Patriots were going to have a better defense … they were able to sign free agents and get top draft picks on that side of the ball, and the same goes for the Steelers, who don’t pay Ben Roethlisberger nearly as much as Manning gets either.

You can do your best to claim “it wasn’t Manning’s fault!” on that pick-six, knowing full well that if it were any other QB – and especially if it was a QB that you didn’t respect – throwing it you’d be singing a different tune. But you can’t get away from the fact that despite having all that talent around him on offense, Manning only produced 17 points on the same defense that Brett Favre and the Vikings went up and down the field on two weeks ago. For whatever reason, in big games the Manning show doesn’t produce a lot of points. Time to quit pretending otherwise. It was that way at Tennessee, it was that way under Mora, it was that way under Dungy, and now it is the same under Caldwell. The coaches have changed, the players around him have changed, the one thing that hasn’t changed is Manning. Admit it and hope that the coaching staff fixes it. I say that the Colts should use their top 2 draft picks on offensive linemen. Pound the ball with Addai – who is entering his prime – and Donald Moore, and let Peyton Manning pick his spots to make plays. It worked for Eli Manning a couple of years ago, so quit pretending that Manning is too good for it, that he HAS to have an offense centered around him. Because I have to tell you guys … it isn’t going to work any other way.

1) Onside kick: This determined the game in my mind, not just because it kept the colts offense off of the field for another eternity, but because in it you could see that the Saints were playing the game at a whole different level of commitment than were the colts. We wanted the win, they NEEDED the win.

2) Up the middle on 3rd and short. We needed the score to take the momentum back; we needed the killer instinct; we needed a two-minute drill. We got a timid “safe” failure. When I saw them lining up I said in disbelief to my wife, “Oh, dear god, they are going to try and punch it up the middle!”

3) Garcon drop. Boink! Maybe he should put some velcro on his chest numbers.

4) Interception. They happen. They suck. But boy was this one a knife in the neck.

He had that first down.

While not blaming Garcon for the loss, his drop did change the flow of the game. You could just sense it. He catches it and the Colts are past midfield with a 10-3 and threatening more. He drops it and from then on, the Saints dominated the rest of the quarter and early into the third.

The reason we lost. He will have to wear that fumble his entire life. Kendra and his son will have to wear it too. It’s a shame because he is an above average 3rd or 4th receiver for many NFL teams, but he is most likely done in the NFL.

A case could be made for ‘wrong place, wrong time’ but Baskett went from being cut by the Eagels to getting a job with the AFC Champion Colts and having a chance to win a Super Bowl ring. He was only going to be a special team player in the game and a lot of people joke that he never see’s the field etc, but after last night’s fumble nobody can dispute how important every second of playing time is.

It’s tough to deal with such a loss, but I don’t think we lost because of Garcon’s missed catch. True, if he had caught it, we would have converted and sustained the drive, but the same can be said of Collie’s drop, Wayne’s miscue and…you get the point, it’s not hard to list particular plays that would’ve helped us.

In my opinion, I would say that our biggest problem was our pass defense. The Saints seemed to play us like Denver did earlier in the season: namely, a three step drop from Brees and dump it off to Henderson or Colston (or Shockey). Both are big, physical receivers and our corners just couldn’t match up with them (I’m looking at you, Tim Jennings!). It just seemed like they could negate our pass rush because they weren’t trying to do anything special (from the 2nd quarter onwards). It was painful to watch the third quarter since the Saints were moving the ball with ease.

Anyways, I wonder how we are supposed to fix this next year. Get a shutdown corner? Hope Marlin Jackson, Bob Sanders and Kelvin Hayden are all healthy?

It’s tough to deal with a SB loss. It’s hard enough to get here, and be healthy too. I hope we can do it again.