The Heart, the hair, and Peyton Manning versus the Maniacal Genius

My heart stopped, or maybe I threw it up, out of my body, so that it hung there in the air, just as the ball hung, so improbably, in the air above Reggie Wayne’s head. The Indianapolis Colts season on the line, but so, so much more than that. The legacy of two men, two great football men, two great everything men. Men to whom only the ability to win the big game could be put into question. The march down the field, systematic, careful, decisive when needed, had yielded a 23 yard catch and run by Reggie Wayne, but in the blink of an eye, somehow, like a magic trick perpetrated by the maniacal Bill Belichick, the ball was hovering above Wayne’s head. Just. Hanging. There. And my heart stopped.

The Colts were driving for the win. To beat their nemesis. To kill the monkey which hung around the head of both quarterback Peyton Manning and head coach Tony Dungy. To say that they were trying to cap an improbable comeback just lacks context. This wasn’t just any comeback. It was a comeback against Belichick, a comeback against the Golden Boy, Tom Brady. It was the fruition of Peyton’s career “Big Game” failures. All those defeats as a youngster at Tennessee. Peyton only lost six times in forty-five games in college, but four of those came against the only team that mattered, Florida. In the pros, somehow, Florida had transmogrified into New England (a geography trick I’d no doubt understand, if I’d taken geography). Dungy, the classiest man in football and an exceptional coach, was no different. Despite a career regular season winning percentage of .648, he was 7-8 in the playoffs, with no Super Bowl appearances. The Golden Boy and the Genius on the other sideline, well, everybody knows that they’re 12-1 together in the playoffs. The Colts weren’t just attempting to take the lead and complete the greatest comeback in AFC championship history, they were trying to exorcise demons. Serious playoff demons.

The game seemed to be over midway through the second quarter. The Patriots scored their first touchdown on a fumble at the two yard line. A fumble which the Colts seemed to have covered, only the ball somehow squirted out the bottom of the pile, where Patriots offensive lineman Logan Mankins lunged upon it. In the end zone. The play was indicative of the Peyton and Dungy’s struggle against the Patriots. It seemed to be a inauspicious sign. A systematic Patriots drive made everybody remember why the Colts had the worst run defense in the league this year, and it added another seven points to the board. 14-3, surely make or break time for Peyton. First throw, interception Assante Samuel, clear path to the endzone. 21-3 Patriots. Even the staunchest Peyton fans were starting to doubt. This was it, how could it possibly be happening again? In Indianapolis, where the Colts were 9-0 this year.

Of course, maybe the greatest quarterback in regular season history isn’t a choker. Maybe, just maybe, he is a great leader, who failed in the past against a dynastical team, with its own great leader, because as the final three minutes of the second quarter ebbed away, Peyton Manning did nothing but systematically dissect a defense which has defined his playoff failures. It was a clinic. Right sideline to Wayne for 18 yards. Across the middle to Marvin Harrison for 13 yards. To the left to Aaron Moorehead for five yards. Back across the middle, this time to Dallas Clark for 13 yards. Up the middle to Dominic Rhodes for 11 yards. Again across the middle to Clark, for another 12 yards. Field goal. 15 plays, 80 yards, in two minutes fifty nine seconds. Six completions, five different receivers, almost Brady-esque.

The Colts still trailed by fifteen, but they hadn’t wilted. After the ugly interception, at what seemed the final breaking point, when lowly writers were ready to pack it in, turn off the game in disgust and move on, Peyton showed determination. And he started the second half in the exact same fashion. Spreading the ball, attacking the defense, winding the Patriots with jabs to the gut. Another long, solid drive, this one capped off by Peyton himself tossing his body over the line for the score. And suddenly, that Colts defense which had been looking so defeated, suddenly they knew that the game was on, that their leader could match the Golden Boy, if they just gave him the ball back. Three and out, Colts ball. Another long drive, another touchdown. This time using the Patriots move against them; defensive lineman, and former Patriot, Dan Klecko feinting to the outside, dummying his man, catching the ball and rumbling in for the score. It was like some bizzaro world. The great Patriots kicker, Adam Vinateri booting it for the Colts, Klecko scoring a touchdown for the Colts (how did New England not see that coming?), Manning calmly leading his team, and spreading the ball. An eighteen point comeback, 21-3, 21-6, 21-13, 21-19… It might be time to tie it up. Peyton, to who else, but Marvin Harrison, two point conversion is good. Tie game. Even watching, there’s a sense of disbelief. Tie game, but… Wow. Shock. The momentum not just swinging to Indy, but catapulting.

Of course, these are the Patriots and they aren’t rolling over. An eighty yard kickoff return by Ellis Hobbs makes the momentum stop. Dead. Five plays, twenty one yards, a short TD pass from Tom Brady to Jabbar Gafney, as though Brady is putting his foot on Peyton’s throat and saying, ‘come on, get up, and punch back.’ And, in the past, perhaps, that punch might have lacked something, but up off the matt Peyton came again. A seven play, 67 yard drive culminating, almost in a cruel twist of fate, in a fumble on the Patriots goal line. A fumble recovered, not by the Patriots, but by Indianapolis lineman Jeff Saturday. Two touchdowns by offensive linemen in the same game. In a championship game no less. Again Wow.

Two Patriot field goals, one for the Colts, a Peyton thumb scare, and some brain cramp penalties on both sides, and the Patriots are leading 34-31. With three minutes left the Colts go three and out and things are looking bleak, but as clumps of hair drop out of the clutched hands of this scribe, the Colts maligned D makes another key stop (helped by a dumb Patriots penalty), and Peyton takes the field with two minutes seventeen seconds left. Forget that he still has another decade of football left to play, this is his legacy moment. Three and out, the games over, Colts lose, the great play and comeback mean nothing, Peyton’s a choker. Eleven yards left to Wayne, first down. Incomplete pass, second down, another tug of the hair follicles hits the floor. Pacing, angst. Is it possible to bite your knuckle clean off? And then we come back to the ball in the air. Tight throw across the middle to Wayne, who slips a tackle and runs down field, only to what? Lose the ball in the air, momentarily stop my heart, add a new bizarre playoff failure to the litany of Dungy-Manning failures…

Then just like that Wayne reached up, grabbed it out of the air, and fell to the ground. It couldn’t have been more than a second, but my heart had no choice but to beat a hundred times faster to make up for the beat it had missed. Fortunately for the Colts, they had the man who supposedly cannot connect in the clutch at the helm. And what did he do? All he did was slow them down. Hand it off to Joseph Addai for 5 yards; run forty-five seconds off the clock, hand it off to Joseph Addai for three yards; force a New England timeout, hand it off to Joseph Addai for 3 yards… Touchdown. Just like that. Nothing fancy, just simple, hard mouth, tough guy football. From the soft perennially choking team.

One last desperation drive by the Golden Boy, which in this bizaro game, could only have ended in a game ending pick. Marlin Jackson stepping in front of a pass for Troy Brown and brilliantly falling stright to the ground. No, stupid run, no possible fumble. Right to the ground. A kneel by Peyton and the game’s over. The heart beating like () and the head looking increasingly like the Bald Man’s.

Of course it isn’t over for Peyton or Dungy. The Chicago Bears are still left to beat. The Bears, who are led by Dungy’s good friend, the great Lovie Smith. Two black coaches, ensuring that one will become the first to win a Super Bowl, but that’s a story for another day. For now, the Colts have done what seemed inherently impossible. They’ve beaten the Patriots, toppled Belichick, outplayed Brady. It’s over, Peyton won the big game…

Now I think I’m going to go and throw up.