Two seconds

That’s how long Manning said they had to operate yesterday. I watched the first half again last night (talk about an act of self-sacrifice), and I saw a lot of two kinds of problems: 1. lots of missed assignments and 2. when guys figured out who to block, it wasn’t a sure thing they actually could block. As good as we all feel about the win, Sunday’s game against Jacksonville is still a must win. The Jags are desperate, and a win could nail shut their season, and quite probably effectively end the future of pro football in Jacksonville.
Other thoughts:

• New England will be around as long as their back 8 holds up. The Pats thrived for years on a simple ball control game plan that we thought could have been executed by anyone. Now they are getting back to that, only with Walker and Moss for Cassel to go to. I still expect them to win 12 games. I’m actually sort of hoping for it.
• Norv Turner is a crappy coach. His statement about the officiating is gutless. The call was awful, but instead of openly blaming the loss on the official, how about some accountability? Why not say, “We can’t keep falling behind by two touchdowns!” or “We still had two chances after the fumble to stop them and win the game, but didn’t”. The Chargers are a whiny bunch, and while I’m sure they’ll come back strong, I don’t think they have what it takes to win it all.
• The Monday Night game against the Titans looms large.
• It’ll still be a couple of more weeks before we really know who is good in this league, like for instance, Jay Cutler. He was alternately great and awful yesterday. Two more weeks should provide some clarity.
• I suppose it goes with the territory, but Manning was killed last week when they lost and praised this week when they won, but I thought he played better last week. Last week the WRs dropped the ball. This week the picks were 18’s fault, and Gonzo was out of his mind.
• Anthony Gonzalez is going to be a great Colt for a long time. Everyone has had that feeling about him from draft day last year, and his interviews are awesome. He takes this game super seriously AND is insanely talented. Sounds like some other players I know.
• Dwight Freeney…oh yeah. He’s fine.
• Eyes was pretty on target this week. I always check it after the game to see how we did. Other than the Tamme/Robinson point (which was still right, only with Santi because Tamme was out), we were right on. Ron Paul’s speech with 5 minutes to play really broke up the flow of the game. Could have done without that.
• Watching the game with all of you was fun. If I had realized that some of you were depending on the game blog to know what was up, I wouldn’t have taken a break. Sorry.
• Big Z is great. But Houston should be livid. They have to play a home game in Milwaukee while all the players are worried about their homes and communities. No wonder they got no hit.

Links:

Jeff Fisher answers some of my questions about the Young story. Primarily that the psychologist mentioned in the original story is NOT VYs therapist, but rather a team consultant who never talked with Young until after the incident. Basically, the story was reported wrong, which makes sense. The original story was convoluted and if true as written, would have involved serious breaches of protocol. Basically we are back to not knowing if Young has serious issues or is just a pampered 23 year old kid who needs to grow up and realize that life requires hard work and pain in order to achieve success.

John Clayton says more coaches should emulate Shanahan. Going for two when he did was actually the higher percentage play. About 60% of 2 point conversion plays work. Your chances in OT are about 55% even if you win the flip. The Chargers defense was weak all day. Maybe in a 10-9 game, you kick the point, but on a day when both defenses are getting gashed, going for two made sense.

Kravitz says Manning is great. No crap. I love how he throws stupid lines in about Brady just to irritate Colts fans. He’s an ass. Still, he gave us this quote which made it worth my while to read him:

“Reggie (Wayne) and I talked (in the second quarter) about getting man coverage,” Manning said later. “Sometimes he tries to make a little pump move, but I told him, ‘We don’t have time for you to make pump moves. Just go, and I’ll throw it right by (the defender’s) ear. He won’t even know the ball’s been thrown by the time it’s in your hands.’ ”

The exchange between Peter King and Mike Shanahan in MMQB today is priceless.

“What happened to the Colts?” Shanahan said. “How’d they win?”
“Peyton Manning,” I said. “Four offensive linemen out, Dallas Clark out, down 15-0 in the Metrodome, they can’t run, Vinatieri misses a chip-shot and it looks like they’ll lose, and Manning just, I don’t know, wouldn’t let them.”
“Wow,” he said.

Don Banks piece on the game was really cool.

Audibles at the Line contains a lengthy discussion of the game. It’s interesting to hear smart non-Colts fans (who are also watching several other games at the same time) react to things. Some of the observations are insightful, others flat wrong (The stretch plays aren’t working…um, because they didn’t actually run any!), but generally entertaining.

CHFF looks at Sunday’s games. Also, I overstated the odds slightly, but Shanahan was still right.

Michael Lombardi gives Peyton an A. That’s pretty amazing really, considering a month ago, Lombardi had some people convinced that come week 2 Peyton would be at home on the couch or writhing in pain considering all the shots he would be taking. Yeah, I’m not going to let that go.

I’m not to proud to say that YAR has me stumped. Manning gets a -20 YAR for getting stopped twice on a sneak? Since when did a QB getting stuffed from the one on a sneak equal a loss of 10 yards? Am I dense here? Isn’t that what this implies? Manning getting stuffed twice didn’t have anywhere near the same effect as losing 20 yards would have. I love FO, but what’s the point of trying to tie a system into easily understood terms like yards and points, if the stats come out that skewed? I know there is something I’m missing here. Can anyone explain it to me?