Something Familiar

This hasn't been your typical post-season.

For the first time in a over a decade neither the one or two seed has reached the AFC Championship.

Scoring is down, despite the presence of only one truly great defense (Baltimore).

The Colts ARE playing defense.

Peyton Manning is throwing interceptions that AREN'T killing his team.

Tom Brady was outplayed by Phillip Rivers.

Rex Grossman, with one more victory could promote Trent Dilfer to the second worst quarterback to play in a Super Bowl.

The Saints are one win away from the Super Bowl. (And both ESPN pundits picked them to make it today.)

The class of the Patriots and Bill Belichick is being questioned by convicted cheaters.

What the hell is going on here?

Take a deep breath, it's okay, Marty Shottenheimer still managed to coach his team out of the playoffs despite having clearly the best team, and even more clearly the best player. Maybe the world isn't spinning off of its axis.

In the midst of this madness however, there is one current storyline, a pervailing theme if you will, that should ring familiar in New England and across the NFL. Everyone is picking the Colts over the Patriots in the AFC Championship game. Call me crazy, but I feel like we've been here before. Two years ago it was the electrifying Indy offense led by the unstoppable offensive magician Peyton Manning that were a sure bet to come into Gillette Stadium and humiliate the overmatched Patriots (the final was 20-3 New England in case you forgot). This time it's the Colts as a defensive minded team of destiny much like the Steelers of last year (despite the FACT that their defense stunk for 16 regular season games...) that will wave their magic wand and float along on fate's gently flowing wings to victory. Give me a break.

Every year the NFL, Manning's marketing army, Bill Polian, and ESPN come up with a bevy of reasons why the Colts will make it over the hump and vanquish their playoff failures with one ultimate and vindicating victory. But it never happens. Why should we all of a sudden forget all that we know of this team, and believe that this incarnation (which is probably the weakest of the last half-decade) will be able to accomplish what their superior predecessors have failed to do?

Furthermore why would we even begin to discuss this topic when lying before Indianapolis is their greatest nemesis. The team that has knocked them out of the playoffs two of the last four years, the team that has won three of the last five Super Bowls (to their big fat zero), the team that has been and done everything that they have not. Does recent history mean nothing?

Sure the Colts beat the Patriots at home this year by a touchdown, but has everyone forgotten the circumstances of that game?

Rodney Harrison got hurt on the third play of the game. Yes, the Patriots will likely be without him again this week, but this time they have had 12 weeks to get used to playing without him, that night that had one minute to do so.

The Patriots turned the ball over five times including four Tom Brady interceptions and they still only lost by a touchdown, and in fact had Kevin Faulk not volleyball-set a Brady pass directly into the hands of Bob Sanders with one minute to play there is a chance that New England would have tied the game.

Richard Seymour and Ty Warren were hurt, not so much that they were unable to play, but don't think for a second that their injuries didn't precipitate much of Manning's freedom outside of the pocket.

If those facts aren't enough for you consider this, how often does the same team beat the Patriots twice in one season?

And I haven't even started on Manning yet. To say that this game holds a great deal of pressure for him is analagous to saying that the climate on the surface of the sun is relatively warm. Manning NEEDS this game. He needs it to vanquish the ghosts of playoffs past. He needs it to silence, at least temporarily, his critics. He needs it to justify his whorish self promotions through grossly excessive advertising. He needs it to develop a legacy as anything other than a playoff bust. He needs it to even be mentioned with Brady, Montana, Young, and Elway as oppossed to Marino, Kelly, and Moon.

The window of opportunity for this Indy team is closing, and if he doesn't bring them through now it may slam shut on him forever. Given his history, why should we assume or even hope that he will rise to the occassion rather than wilt and pass the blame as before? He hasn't even played well in their victories this post-season, he's already choked, and choke he will again because that is who he is. I don't believe in him, and I won't consider him the elite quarterback ESPN and the NFL want him to be until he wins this game, and then does it again, and again, and again like number 12 in New England.

It's by no means a sure thing that New England will win on Sunday night, but if history holds true and all that we know to be comes to pass yet again there is no way that Manning rewrites the script this time.

I'll have a more football, less gut-feeling preview later in the week.


On that note I'd like to switch topics and declare that Bill Polian is a goat-fucking jackass. Sure I have no actual evidence as to Mr. Polian's penchant for beastailty and sexual deviance, but since he seemingly can say whatever the hell he wants and have it be so, why can't I?

"When you have blitzing teams and you allow that downfield stuff, such as what happened to (Colts wide receiver) Reggie Wayne, you’re going to limit offense. That’s the net of it. You encourage the power-running game, you discourage the passing game and if you’re limited to a running game, it’s rare that you can do what we did in the fourth quarter and take the game over with a power-running attack"...

"You went something like two-and-a-half games before a touchdown was scored? That’s not good, when the best teams play that way. That’s not good for the health of the game. I think that was certainly a contributing factor to a low-scoring game."

As you know this useless ass-bag thinks that blowing kisses at Colts receivers should be penalized with a 100 yard pass interference penalty and 25 point score adjustment, and that he should be the sole judge and jury of all things related to downfield passing infractions. In fact, in Polian's perfect world, there would be no defense allowed in the RCA Dome. Stepping off of the sidelines into the field of play while the Colts are in possession of the ball would be illegal and punishable by death.

Okay maybe I'm getting a little (a lot?) carried away here but the fact of the matter is this. Polian is already suggesting (and not very subtly) that he thinks the game should be called tighter. He's conditioning the referees to be predisposed to flag any and all contact on his receivers, thereby letting them run free under threat of huge (game changing) yardage penalties should they be obstructed (which of course is Indy's best chance to win). Normally this would just be idle musings from a loudmouth executive but in this case it's something more. After the Patriots trounced the Colts in 2003 Polian whined about the rough treatment his wideouts received in Foxboro, and that coupled with his substantial influence on the NFL Competition Committee resulted in the new downfiled illegal contact rules known, at least informally as the "Patriot Rule". Now, just days before kickoff Polian is using this preposterous statment to remind the officials that they don't want to end up in front of him and his committee in March. It's laughable and pathetic and leads to a troubling and hopefully avoidable conclusion.

This game is going to be the pinnacle of poor officiating. (Disclaimer: this is going to sound like I'm making excuses for the Patriots to lose, I'm not, if I know this going in then they do as well.) Not only has Polian poisoned their objectivity with this thinly veiled threat but it is hardly a secret that the NFL is DYING to get Manning into a Super Bowl. They already showed last year that they are willing to bend the rules to make that happen, even though it didn't work (recall the totally and obviously bogus reversal of Troy Polamalu's fourth quarter interception in the divisional round) and I can only hope that the transparency of that atttempt will force the officials to keep up the upmost appearance of propriety.

Last word on this (for today). Does Polian realize that some teams would rather take over a game with a power running attack, especially against his squad's extremely (until the last two weeks I guess...) porous run defense? Running the football is a part of the game and is a factor in the passing game. In fact, I think every team in the league would rather run the ball than pass if given the option. As the famous saying goes, "When you pass the football three things can happen and two of them are bad." Not to mention, does he think that people don't realize that every complaint he has centers on the Patriots? First it was the '03 officiating, then it was compensatory draft picks, then the field in Foxboro wasn't good enough, and now this. Clearly he shares Mannings attitude that winning is his right (Tagliabue and MasterCard told me so! Waaahhh!) and that anyone or anything that stands in his way must be illegal and should be changed or outlawed. This reeks of a frustrated group outraged by the success of the glamour and glitz free Patriots, as a couterpoint to their overwhelming and in their minds inexplicable failure. Maybe someone needs to remind Polian that they play the games on the field and that so far, despite the fact that the NFL has given in to him at every turn, his soft team led by his soft overrated quarterback has won exactly nothing.

Well look at that, I ranted myself right out of rage, I have none left for Roosevelt Colvin, Shawne Merriman, LT, or any of the other fools involved in that Patriots / Chargers post-game nonsense. More on that later.