"Peyton Manning: Best quarterback ever?"

Tweet By Jonathan Schlosser

I’m not ready to say he is yet - he has some years left to play and I think we need to see those before we know - but today’s game against the New York Jets was one of the best statements for the title that I’ve ever seen.



The Jets came out hot. Rex Ryan is a great coach and he has put together the best defense of the year. They were blitzing and they were getting to Peyton and hitting him. I was surprised, honestly, because most teams can’t do that. They were hitting him and getting in his face and forcing the Colts to punt. It was impressive and, combined with Sanchez throwing two touchdowns - one a bomb to Edwards that he managed to hold on to - had the Jets winning and looking convincing. And then Peyton figured out what was going on and the game was essentially over.

There was one play that summed it all up. The Colts had the ball near the twenty and they came up to the line. The Jets, as usual, showed blitz. Peyton stepped back and started motioning and yelling to people and I looked at my roommate and said: “He’s beating them right now. He’s telling people where to go to score and there’s nothing the Jets can do about it.” Then they snapped the ball. Manning looked for a moment and then tossed the ball right over the middle to Dallas Clark. Touchdown.

No one else can do that like Manning. No one. It’s the chess match part of the game and he is the greatest quarterback to play that game that I have ever watched. It all springs from his being an incredible student of the game. He always knows what’s going on and how to beat the defense just by looking at it. He can stand at the line and it’s almost like he sees where the defenders are going to run before they do it, where they’re going to blitz and where they’re going to drop back and even how fast the other men are going to be. He can see the holes and how his receivers are going to run into them. By the time he gets the ball, he already knows where to throw it to score. It’s pure intelligence and it is amazing to watch.

The game wasn’t technically over on the Clark touchdown, but Manning just continued doing the same thing for the rest of the game and the Jets only managed a field goal. Ryan threw every blitz he could think of, but the Colts didn’t even look like they noticed. They threw it easily all over. Revis did a fair job of keeping Reggie Wayne out of the game - he had one notable catch, but he was hardly a game-changer. Still, with Manning directing, Austin Collie (seven catches for 123 yards and a touchdown) and Pierre Garcon (eleven catches for 151 yards and a touchdown) couldn’t be stopped - not to mention Dallas Clark and the aforementioned touchdown. Manning just creates weapons, it seems. And he’ll need to create them two weeks from now, in Miami, when he goes head-to-head with Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints.



Saints survive in OT:

The game was just as advertised: insane. The battle of two high-powered offenses. Crushing defenses. Scoring back and forth the entire time. Fans standing and screaming and making the fabled Superdome the loudest place in the United States. And in the end, when it went to overtime and Garrett Hartley - who botched that famous kick against the Bucs a few weeks ago - drilled it from forty yards, it capped what may have been the best game of the season. It was crazy. I was standing on the couch and hardly able to breathe.

All credit to the Saints: they played a very good game and did what they needed to do to win and advance to face the Colts in the Super Bowl. They were great on special teams, almost breaking it on two huge returns. They ran the ball well and passed it well - Drew Brees, when he had time, picked the secondary apart like he had done all year. Reggie Bush had yet another pylon touchdown. When it came down to the end, they drove down in a nail-biter and got into range by going for it on fourth down and diving over the pile.

But: the Vikings lost this game. They threw it around and ran it very well for most of the game; they just killed themselves with turnovers. You just can’t fumble the ball that many times and throw that many interceptions (especially at the end; Favre’s last throw of regulation that was picked while they were in field goal range) and expect to win. You just can’t. They were lucky really to be in it with numbers like that. Five turnovers in total. Any coach will tell you that turnovers are the backbreaker of a good team; with so many, the Vikings threw the game away. They played very well and gave themselves a chance, but the Saints were too good to lose with that much in their favor.

As a side note: things could be said here about the refs and some of those calls at the end. Particularly the uncatchable ball with the interference call. Or the incompletion that was, apparently, a catch. Or the roughing the passer that wasn’t called (two others were; the Saints were out to kill Favre, legally or otherwise). But I don’t like those sorts of excuses, so I won’t say them.

The only question remaining after this game:

Will Favre come back?

Super Bowl prediction:

I’ll write a full breakdown next week, along with a Pro Bowl recap, but here’s my the-games-just-ended-and-here’s-my-gut prediction: Colts by four.

BYLINE:

Jonathan Schlosser is a writer and part-time library worker. He has published some short fiction and is working on finding a publisher for his novel. He has a B.A. in Writing, which means that, for a living, he is allowed to put away books at the library. He is also allowed to tell parents to tell their children to be quiet. He lives in Grand Rapids, MI. Email Jonathan at jonathan@zoiksonline.com.

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