ESPN offers many excellent podcasts. The Football Today show is rarely one of them. Jeremy Green is the normal host, and I cannot listen to him. He’s painfully unintelligent. For the past few weeks, however, they’ve been shuttling in different people to have arguments. Recently, they asked two of the divisional bloggers to debate Phil Rivers vs Eli Manning.
This is an interesting debate, as the two players were essentially traded for one another. The version on the podcast, however, jumped the rails quickly as Bill Williamson continually repeated a bold faced lie as one of his chief selling points for Rivers.
He said several times:
Phillip Rivers beat the Colts in the playoffs twice.
Let’s be very clear about something. That never happened. The Chargers beat the Colts twice, but Phil Rivers didn’t have much to do with it. In fact, he wasn’t even in the game in ’07 when the Chargers took the lead. Billy Volek “won” that game (if you call throwing a couple of screen passes for 40 yards ‘winning’). Rivers deserves no credit at all for that playoff win. His team was losing. Another QB engineered the game winning drive.
Technically, I suppose you could argue that he “won” the game this past January. Of course, you’d have to forget what actually happened in the game to say that, but there is at least some level of accuracy for the statement. For the game, he posted a QB rating of 61.2. In regulation, he lead three scoring drives ALL of which began on the Colts side of the field. He botched the two minute drive at the end of regulation, only getting a field goal, when his team got the ball at the 38 yard line. In overtime, he completed one third down pass, but it was a screen to Sproles. His passing DYAR for the game was -7.
So, Mr. Williamson, it’s fine if you love Phil Rivers, just don’t credit him with beating the Colts. He didn’t. His team did.
Links:
Prisco’s best, numbers 25-50. Reggie Wayne at 27.
Freeney loves Richard Dent. He had a nice contribution for the Colts, once upon a time.
More nonsense. Who cares. There are two years left to settle this issue. It is ridiculous.
88 to the Vikes? I could live with that.
Funny how that goes. Manning and AV rank 3 and 2 on a list of the most clutch NFL players. You can guess who the rank number 1. I’m telling you all, the massive historical rewrite that will take place when the Colts win the Super Bowl will give you all whip lash. Suddenly, people will realize that the Colts last three playoff losses had nothing to do with QB and everything to do with the rest of the team. I’m not even going to fight the crazy for now. It’s all about to take care of itself. Fix the run game, Mr. Caldwell, and all our lives will get a lot easier.
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