To cascading boos at Lucas Oil Stadium and widespread disillusionment here at FITS headquarters, Indianapolis Colts’ head coach Jim Caldwell pulled Peyton Manning and the rest of the Colts’ offensive starters midway through the third quarter of Sunday’s game against the New York Jets.
The result?
A 15-10 Colts’ lead quickly vanished – and along with it, Indy’s chance to become the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to go undefeated during an NFL season. In fact, the Jets reeled off nineteen unanswered points en route to a 29-15 victory – including a defensive touchdown after Colts’ backup quarterback Curtis Painter fumbled on the first snap of his second possession.
Painter completed just 4 of 11 passes for 44 yards. In addition to his disastrous fumble, he was picked off once.
With Indy already securing home field advantage throughout the 2010 playoffs, the outcome of this game for our founding editor’s beloved Horsies was technically insignificant.
But “technically” doesn’t count in our book – particularly not when a shot at football history (no, football immortality) is on the line.
Plus, we’ve never believed that benching starters late in the season was a smart move – at least it hasn’t been for Indy.
In 2005, with home field advantage secured, the Colts benched their starters for the final two games of the regular season. The result? They came out rested – but flat – in a divisional playoff loss to the sixth-seeded Pittsburgh Steelers.
Similarly in 2007, Indianapolis benched its starters toward the end of the season once home field advantage was secured – and then proceeded to lose another divisional playoff game in which it was heavily-favored, this time to the San Diego Chargers.
In 2006, the year the Colts won the Super Bowl, their starters played every game of the regular season and four consecutive playoff games. They never looked tired during their stretch run, and Manning turned in two of his best games of the season in the AFC Championship against New England and the Super Bowl win over ‘Da Bears.
In contrast to the Colts’ approach under former coach Tony Dungy and now Caldwell, the 2007 New England Patriots – the last team to finish a regular season undefeated – played their starters all the way through the final two games of the year under head coach Bill Belichick.
Also the New Orleans Saints – who have lost twice in a row after starting the season 13-0 – played their starters even after clinching home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
While the Colts quest for perfection is over – and a 23-game regular season winning streak has been snapped – Peyton Manning did make some individual history prior to being pulled. His 24-yard completion to wide receiver Austin Collie pushed him past the 50,000-yard mark for his career, enabling him to join Brett Favre, Dan Marino and John Elway as the only other quarterbacks to reach that plateau.
Still, it was clearly a bittersweet record for Manning, occurring as it did during a game in which defeat was (intentionally) snatched from the jaws of a potentially historic victory.
By Old Bike Dude December 27, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Keelhaul the stupid bastard!
By Liberty For Me December 27, 2009 at 10:21 pm
I was saying on Christmas that I think the NFL does this on purpose.I think its to keep some sort of sacred goal.For whatever reason it sucks.You should always try to dominate every game..or whats the point?
By countryboy December 27, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Might want to check Caldwells bank account for any large deposits from Las Vegas banks.