The first of many articles hammering Manning

Peoples football IQs drop about 30 points on this board if the discussion involves Manning. I understand the division rival causes negative bias towards him, and the obvious homerism most of us will have, but I have to agree with you completely. Anyone who watched that game and didnt realize how terrible the entire offense was doesnt know anything about football. Manning certainly wasnt great, but he was as good or better than any other QB could have been under the intense pressure he had on him all day. And anyone talking about the 4th down play is just obvious looking for something to ***** about, because that was clearly the right call to be made at that time, and it was a conversion, so what is the big deal with that.

 

Of course he isnt above criticism, he didnt play a great game by any means. But its just amazing how the media, and this board, and wherever the entire emphasis is on manning and not the kicker, or not Wayne dropping a catchable pass in the endzone, or not the Oline not being able to pick up a blitz for anything. They all played their part in the loss, and certainly Manning did too, but from everyones reaction you would think Peyton was the only one who made any kind of mistakes and the rest of the team played flawless. He is getting criticized for converting on a 4th down conversion for gods sake because it was somehow disrespectful, its ridiculous in my opinion.

 

A more mobile QB possibly could have done better, but any stationary guy was going to get destroyed with that kind of blocking. There were some opportunities for him to check down and he didnt, so again, I certainly agree he made his mistakes, but I think there were plenty of issues to go around, thats all.

 

No, it would have been forever known as the game as the refs gave the Dolts a FREE 8 points and that's how they stole the game.

 

Look, I'm comparing McNair that day to his norm that year and his role in the offense. And I'm comparing Manning's effort on Sunday to his norm in 2005. I'm not saying Manning didn't have a better day passing in those 2 games. Nor am I saying that, in a vaccum, that I'd rather have McNair's stats over Manning's. But relative to their separate situations, I'd label McNair's performance decent and Manning's as sub-par.

You didn't respond to my point that Manning is calling all the plays on the field. Why didn't he call plays that would punish the blitz? He had the one long drive in the 1st half that ended in a FG, where they had a ton of short and intermediate gains. That was a well executed drive and Manning was never sacked. He was capable of calling those kind of plays all day long. Who else do you blame for giving up on that strategy?

Plus, I'm not going to ignore Manning's game sealing INT just because the refs bent over for him.

 

The fact that Manning gets so much freedom to call the plays is still a coaching decision. If the coaches arent happy with his playing calling it should be discussed, Tom Moore is the OC, not Manning. This was a bad loss for the entire team, they were out played and outcoached in almost all areas of the game.

 

No one here is saying that Manning isn't an excellent QB. Most of the time, he's arguably the league's best passer.

That having been said, he also has a long-running trend of choking in crunch time. Look at his 6 playoff losses, and tell me he's played well in them. You could probably make an argument that he was OK in the loss to Miami a few years ago. But he was shut down in each of the other 5 losses. And it's not like that trend isn't a continuation from his time at UT, where he could never once beat Florida. He just isn't a winner.

Do Titans fans take pleasure in seeing him fail? Absolutely! I have no problem admitting I do. I love seeing Lucy pull the ball away from him on an annual basis come playoff time. It's like clockwork. Just write it in on your new calendar for some weekend in January. It's not a matter of if. It's just a matter of when.