Jeff Blake's parabolic arc bombs to Week 8 of the NFL

Show of hands. Who's gonna get their ass up at 8am for ATL/DET tomorrow?

 

I'll be up.

On a related note, if having a team in London means a game every Sunday morning, then I'm all for it.

 

The real issue is, how many people will get up to see if they need to start or sit Calvin Johnson on their fantasy football team?

 

I won't deny I'm a bit "out there" on QBs compared with most. I am fascinated by their backgrounds, leadership skills, how they handle all of the crap before and after the snap. I like to watch games where I have no rooting interest just for the quarterback play storylines -- does a rookie seem to "get it"? (for example)

My own "black helicopter" thinking on Manning for this season is I think the Broncos should sit him for three weeks in late November/early December (once they have the playoffs in their sights) because, at his age, I would want him as fresh as possible for January. Again, I'm probably the only person in the world who thinks this and I recognize this.

I've never said Peyton Manning is lazy.

I do think that he's had just about everything handed to him and that has affected his play at the most critical moments. The second "the plan" gets a little sideways, he's liable to go on tilt in a hurry. What I've always felt he lacks is the consistent ability to overcome unexpected adversity. From when he was a kid and through his high school recruitment, he was Archie's kid. That means every coach will defer to little Peyton.

The other top-flight quarterbacks in the league in recent years - probably to a man - have overcome being told they're not good enough (Rodgers), not tall enough (Brees, Wilson), they could only play QB at Miami OH, Eastern Illinois, Northern Iowa or that Spergon Wynn is a better QB in this year's draft. In addition to their talent, hearing they're not good enough probably also fueled them to reach the point they've reached.

I've always felt Manning has taken the path of least resistance, whenever possible, from college at Tennessee (when they were a national-level program) to signing in Denver, so he could rack up wins against the Chiefs and Raiders four times a year in the twilight.

The mythology of quarterbacks is an easy storyline. I covered the Packers during Favre's last decade there. The last six years in Green Bay, he *was* lazy but, when the national media talked about him, it was like how the TV guys would talk about Ernie McCracken in "Kingpin". From about 1997 to 2007, Favre went unchecked in Green Bay and, in the playoffs, that hurt the team. He was good enough to win games in the regular season on talent alone.

I feel the same way about Manning (not on being lazy - he's not - but on the media genuflecting), although, to his credit, he hasn't exactly had a murderer's row of head coaches helping him in his career. At least Favre had Holmgren for that six-year stretch before the enablers took over.

The whole "509" record from last week was a "meh". Touchdowns and passing yards in 2014 are so cheap -- they're like box office grosses that aren't adjusted for inflation. Although when I saw that the two guys after Manning on the all-time TD pass record were Favre and Marino, I thought, "well, that's appropriate. Compilers who can win 38-14 in October but can't shift gears after Christmas."

Manning is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. No question. Yet all this talk of "greatest of all time" since he broke the record makes me smirk. He remains outside in my Top 5 of "pick a quarterback for one game - lose that game and you're fired".

 

What were Manning's other choices besides Denver? It was the 49ers and Cardinals, right? He was going to walk into a decent team no matter what. Should he have held out for the Raiders?

 

and he was sure lazy and privileged coming back from that neck surgery.

 

Manning is everything that is right about football. He studies. He works his ass off. He's great to teammates. He's great to everyone who works for the team. He's a class act.

His problem is that he does too much, and I think this only catches up with him in the postseason. He should be put in a situation like Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees or Tom Brady where he has carte blanche to change the play at the line of scrimmage, but have someone calling the plays. I think if you take that kind of pressure off him and you might see him do better in the postseason. To be fair though, Manning is doing it the way he wants to do it. If he wanted someone else calling the plays, he might have gone to a different team after the Colts let him go.

 

A couple big differences there. Favre, in his last six years in Green Bay, was mostly indifferent. He made comments like. "I got my ring." and laughed on the sideline when he threw four picks in a home playoff loss to the Vikings. Manning desperately wants a second title. I don't think Favre gave a shit until he got to the Vikings.

Manning is also surrounded by better talent than Favre had during his final six seasons in Green Bay.

 

1) Obviously, Manning is not Russell Wilson or Brett Favre when it comes to improv and scrambling to salvage a broken play (although he is deceptively elusive in the pocket). Manning's genius is his ability to figure out what the defense is going to do before it does it, and then put his teammates in the right spots to take advantage of that. His improv comes before the snap, not after.
It's why the teams that most succeed against Manning are the ones that outthink and outscheme him by altering their defensive calls right up to the last moment, just like he's able to do to defenses.
Manning has had his whiny moments, no doubt, but if you give him enough time he will eventually figure you out and beat you.
Here's a stat for you. Since 2002, in games Manning has played the majority of the snaps (to exclude the Week 16 and 17 games where he only played a few series or a half), he's had seven games where his team lost by more than 10 points. Seven blowout losses in 11-plus seasons. For comparison's sake, Tom Brady has had 14 in the same span.
What I think that means is, either Manning is handling adversity pretty well or he's good enough that he puts his team in positions where they don't have to face it very often.

2) I doubt, especially at this point in his career, that coaches defer to him because "he's Archie's kid." They defer to him because he's possibly the best damn quarterback to ever play the game, a guy who's always prepared, who has the respect of his teammates (has anyone other than Mike Vanderjagt ever said a bad word about him?), and who has proven all of this throughout the course of a 16-year-and-counting first ballot Hall of Fame career.

3) Gee, a top-flight high school quarterback is recruited by a top-flight college program and goes there. I can't for the life of me remember when that has ever happened before or since.
Seriously, was he supposed to go to Tulane just to prove a point?
As for his signing with the Broncos, the guy knows he only has a few years left to win another Super Bowl. Why wouldn't he pick a team -- and, as a free agent, he is allowed to do that -- that gives him the best chance? If you think he picked the Broncos (who were an overachieving 8-8 team when he signed with them) simply to fatten up his stats, you're insane.

 

Well, we do get that extra hour of sleep thanks to the end of daylight savings time.

 

In his Super Bowl winning season . . .

--- He got there by leading his team back from a 21-3 deficit in the AFC title game, a heck of a lot of "adversity" that was partly his own doing (a Pick-6 that made it 21-3).

--- He took his "indoor, finesse-built team" into a fucking monsoon against Chicago and went 25-38 with a TD, a pick and no fumbles. His team fell behind 7-0 on the opening kickoff, and Manning was intercepted on his first series. Adversity, wouldn't you say?

"But, but, but . . . Rex Grossman!" : : :

That's next week.

 

I woke up for it.
setting the alarm to get up excruciatingly early on a weekend and watch a little something called football being played in England? Did it yesterday. Such is the typical weekend of a soccer fan.