Welcome Home Peyton?

First appeared on October 25th, 2013
in The Lebanon Reporter

Welcome Home Peyton, it’s good to see you again. We’ve missed you so much we decided to give you a 39-33 beat down on national television. OK, so maybe “beat down” goes too far when describing Sunday night, but surely it wasn’t the coming home party Manning envisioned.

The guys “coming home” after all. When was the last time you went home and got punched in the face? (all apologies to Anthony Weiner, this isn’t about you). This was supposed to be a smile for the cameras before tossing ten touchdowns and making Jim Irsay eat the biggest plate of crow since Skip Bayless ridiculed the Colts for letting Manning go to draft Andrew Luck kind of night.

But it wasn’t. Instead it became the Colts making Manning look ordinary despite the fact he was on pace to have the greatest season in NFL history. There was no moment Manning looked comfortable. From the video tribute where he made the Spartan-like gesture of removing his helmet to acknowledge the fans, to the first drive, to Robert Mathis and his sack-fumble-safety, Manning looked rattled from start to finish.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Colts fans longed to see Manning light the scoreboard up, if only to come up short in the end. They didn’t want to see four sacks, countless wobbly ducks and Britton Colquitt taking the field seven times.

They wanted a shootout at the OK Corrall between Andrew “The Kid” Luck and “The Sheriff”. What they got instead was a dominating Colt defense and a victory that somehow left them feeling sorry for the greatest quarterback in NFL history.

The hype machine had us drooling with anticipation. To welcome him home, we envisioned the city of Indianapolis replacing Lady Victory with a bust of Manning while the State legislature would lobby Washington to make Indiana the 18th state. Jim Irsay would cough up enough coin to commission a statue of Manning while Roger Goodell would make an appearance to knight “the Sheriff” beforehand.

Manning would take the field on a litter toted by the Broncos Offensive Line while the London Symphony Orchestra (accompanied by a nattily clad Jim Nabors) cranked out their own rendition of “Back Home Again in Indiana”. From the stands wives would faint into the arms of their husbands, thrusting them once again into the eternal struggle of woman vs. beer.

Meanwhile children in Manning Colt jerseys their parents are too cheap to replace, would sob uncontrollably as if the jumbo-tron had just revealed Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny are both fictionalized products of an unstable economic model based upon consumerism.
This was the welcome home Manning was to have, the welcome home he deserved.

What the Colts gave him Sunday night flies in the face of everything ‘Hoosier Hospitality’ stands for. And so we’re left to ponder just how much of Manning’s ineffectiveness was a product of the Colt pass rush and secondary play, and how much of it was his inability to move past the fact he was playing in Indianapolis again.

Is it possible the man who tried for so long to mask his emotions, was so overcome with them that it actually impacted his play? All these years Defensive Coordinators charged with stopping Manning have lost time pounding their heads against the wall while chain smoking cheap cigarettes when the answer was right there in front of their faces.

The best way to attack Manning is not with an exotic blitz package or Nickel coverage, rather it’s to strike straight for the heart. For after Sunday night, this appears to be his lone vulnerability.

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© 2013 Eric Walker Williams

Hello Indiana, this is Football

First appeared on October 7th, 2013
in The Lebanon Reporter

Historically speaking Indiana and football are two words that have shared an awkward moment when finding themselves in the same sentence, not unlike ‘extra large and diet coke’ or ‘functional and government’.

They were those two kids at the middle school dance lingering in opposite corners, one fighting to hide braces, the other using shadows to cure a bad case of acne, so many having tried before to bring them together only to fail in a miserable, flaming ball of disappointment and loss. Lots of losses.

But that has changed. Saturday was more than just a victory over Penn State for the Indiana Hoosiers. It was more than just their first win in 17 tries against the Nittany Lions. Saturday was different. Saturday was a glimmer of hope for Hoosier nation, a shot in the arm for Kevin Wilson’s program and potential vindication for IU athletic director Fred Glass.

Aside from taping a million dollars under one of Memorial Stadium’s 52,000 seats, Glass has done nearly everything in his power to get people to come to The Rock. This includes a multi-million dollar North End Zone renovation, erecting the largest flagpole in college athletics, adding a new scoreboard, developing a play area for the kids and now, apparently, fielding a defense capable of making the stops necessary to beat quality Big Ten opponents.

But just like that church that tries to get younger by offering a full coffee bar, free donuts, sermons best timed with a stopwatch, digital projectors and live music featuring electric guitars, drum machine and confusing front man who seems more interested in finding a captive audience than flirting with real faith, people initially attend out of curiosity. It’s real belief that brings them back every time.

Before Saturday real belief in Indiana Football simply didn’t exist. While Glass’ hiring of former Oklahoma Offensive Coordinator Kevin Wilson was seen as a coup at the time, two years of continued frustration saw Wilson entering the third year of his contract as an unproven commodity.

Labeled a mad scientist by some for his offensive innovation, the fact alone Wilson left a prominent position with one of the perennial powers in college football to take the Indiana job is reason enough to consider him mad. For, before Wilson’s arrival, Indiana had been a place where good coaches went to die.

But Saturday the world got a glimpse of what Wilson imagined his Hoosiers could be. Potent on offense, stout on defense. And while Penn State may be a current shell of its former self, they remain a quality Big Ten opponent and another win in Indiana’s quest to return to a bowl.

Coming into Saturday, Indiana’s 2-2 start had left many fans fuzzy and disillusioned, uncertain that recognizable progress was being made. To quote former Arizona Cardinals head coach Dennis Green, it seemed as though the Hoosiers “are who we thought they were!”, a high powered offense and lackluster defense; the Loyola Marymount of Football.

But Saturday was different. Saturday was the first win over Penn State in school history. After coming up short against Navy and Missouri, Indiana found what they needed most; a victory over somebody they weren’t supposed to beat.

Moving forward, Doug Mallory and the Hoosier Defense appear destined to determine Indiana’s bowling fate. Wilson’s offense can score points against anybody in the country but the hope of playing 13 lies with the defense. And, at least for one afternoon, the defense gave hope to Hoosier Nation that football was more than a giant flagpole, million dollar scoreboard and endless activities for the kids.


© 2013 Eric Walker Williams