Dear Peyton, it's me, Peyton

First appeared on February 10, 2016
in The Lebanon Reporter

Dear Peyton,

It's me. Well, it's you really. You know, it's Peyton, from the future. Look, I know you’re struggling with this whole retirement thing, and I totally understand because I’ve already been there; you know, since I’m from the future and all.

Anyway, I’m writing you to let you know that it would be best for all involved if you just retired right now, I mean, I would if I were you, which of course, I am. Just hurry up and get it over with. Think of it as ripping a Band-Aid off. Sure there’ll be some immediate pain and suffering, but after a long, long, long time, you won’t even miss football. And, considering you were sacked over 300 times in your career, it won’t really matter, because by that time you won’t even remember you played anyway.

Look, I get it. Football’s been really good to you and you love it more than Papa John Schnatter and life itself. And it’s going to be hard to walk away from the crowds chanting your name and the little kids running around in your jerseys and the millions upon millions of dollars in endorsements you stand to lose by retiring and the fact you are on national television sixteen weeks out of the year and the endless line of beautiful women fawning over you and the countless babies who bear your name. From where you sit right now, this retirement thing must look extremely disappointing and, I’ll be frank, it pretty much is (though, legally, I’m not supposed to tell you that).

I get that you want to keep playing, but the reality is you can't. Football is a violent sport that has taken a massive toll on your body. It's also an incredibly fast sport and, well you and fast are two words that have never shared space in the same sentence, except for last Sunday when my wife said, “Geez, did you see how fast Peyton went to kiss Papa John?” And, diminished skills aside, drinking Budweiser and eating Papa John’s pizza isn’t exactly the best training regimen if you plan on sharing a field with some of the best athletes in the world.

See, the media blasted Cam Newton for not jumping on a fumble, and he’s young, strong, athletic, and the reigning league MVP. Can you just imagine what they’ll do to you when it’s week 8 and you’re playing with two dislocated hips, have yet to complete a forward pass, and your coaches are lobbying the league to allow you to throw the ball from a litter carted around by your offensive line?

Besides, there’s plenty of cool stuff waiting for you in the future. Like right now, they’re offering a $30 million reward for anyone who can find President Sanders after he forgot who he was and wandered out of the White House two weeks ago. They also made this really awesome new Star Wars movie where the Rebels have to try and disable the Empire’s protective shield long enough to destroy this giant machine the Dark Side has created to blow up the universe; spoiler alert, the Rebels win.

You had a good, some would say maybe even better than Tom Brady, run. You won your last game, well, really, Von Miller and the rest of the Bronco defense won your last game, but you still have two rings, which means Thanksgiving and Christmas won’t be nearly as uncomfortable for you anymore. So do your knees, hips, back, arm, neck, shoulder, brain, wife and children a favor and hang the cleats up as soon as you finish reading this.

Sincerely,

Peyton from the Future

© 2016 Eric Walker Williams

Time for Manning to kick the Colts

First appeared on November 6th, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

So your Colts are 3-5 and one person lighter on the payroll. They are a listing ship that has strayed far, far from course. A storm is brewing on the horizon, skies of dark blue and orange threaten as a power struggle has erupted at the helm.

Suddenly Jim Irsay, Chuck Pagano and Ryan Grigson are busy trying to elbow each other out of the way. Of course the bad news for Colts fans is, at this point it really doesn’t matter who grabs the wheel because nobody seems to know where they’re going anyway.

Pep Hamilton was forced off the plank, but don’t worry he didn’t see it coming. His face was buried in his poster-sized play chart hunting up another long pass play and he simply sunk like a stone. And now Rob Chudzinski has been handed the Scotch Tape and Superglue, so as to piece together what’s left of Andrew Luck’s ego. Meanwhile Luck, the once promising and unquestioned Captain, has been relegated to the hold, where he huddles in a dark corner, shell-shocked and shivering, mumbling to himself like a half-wit.

And the storm closes in as the ship rolls uncontrollably. An undefeated team, a tremendously talented defense and the future Hall of Famer the Colts gave up on four years ago are about to swamp what’s left of Indy’s half-submerged deck.

But he was done, his arm a noodle, no feeling in his hands. He can’t throw the deep ball anymore, look at his numbers. Manning isn’t what he used to be, Bob from Quality Control says, which is true, but he has a world class defense behind him you counter, one that has led him to an undefeated start. This is a point Bob is quick to shrug off as if he was the one who invented the Jet Sweep or Nickel Defense, which of course means conceding anything football to you is therefore forever beneath him.

Still, tired as he may appear, Manning’s Broncos are not the defenseless gazelle that has strayed from the herd, the one the Colts so desperately need to pounce on right now. Instead, they are a rabid she-wolf with superhuman strength and play every down as if you just kicked one of their pups in the teeth.

And so the greatest mind ever to play the sport sails in to town at the same time one of the games brightest young minds appears to have lost his. In the world of the NFL, the quarterback discussion will begin and end with Peyton until we are all dust in the wind, or Brett Favre attempts yet another comeback, whichever happens first.

So come on in Denver, everything else has gone wrong. Colts nation should embrace their impending beat down. They should open their arms and welcome the absolute skull-rattling thrashing their team will take Sunday. Here’s hoping the skies open up and it rains touchdowns. After all, the storybook years Peyton gave us deserve a Hollywood ending. One that includes his vanquishing the team that quit on him. And we all know a good vanquishing is not a true vanquishing without complete and utter domination.

Somehow it seems fitting that, for once, we should realize the fate so many suffered at the hands of Manning’s Colts for lo those many years. Don’t let the firing of Pep Hamilton fool you, this season is lost. With that in mind, let’s go out and set a new NFL record for points allowed. Let’s send Peyton out with more than a bang. Let’s send him out with an eruption of Krakatoan proportions.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

Manning is the 'Top of the Heap"

First appeared on January 30, 2014
in The Lebanon Reporter

Start spreading the news. I’m leaving today. I want to wake up in the city that doesn’t sleep and catch a train to the Super Bowl in New Jersey. Yes friends the infamous “New York” Super Bowl has finally arrived.

How fitting the forecast would be mid thirties and rain, considering the only thing worse than taking a train clogged with half-tanked businessmen in five hundred dollar arctic parkas before standing in a security line for two hours only to assume your tiny perch outside in a February rainstorm is the fact most have paid well over $3,000 for the chance to do so.

It’s been a long two weeks for Part Time Pretend Sports Columnists everywhere as storylines in New York, not unlike a meal for under $100, have proven difficult to find. They’ve done everything short of resurrecting Tim Tebow, bouncing from the Richard Sherman interview to Peyton’s legacy to the sophistication of New York to openly questioning the strong nose and masculine jaw line of Lady Liberty.

So the Mad Clapper, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, giggle-snorts his way to the Big Apple as his Pro-Bowl corner reaffirms his position that he is in fact the greatest cornerback in our solar system. And as President Obama stood before a joint session of Congress to give his State of the Union address Tuesday night, surely even he must have realized that the Sherman interview, and ESPN’s subsequent fanning of the non-existent flames, did more in three days to galvanize the nation than he’s been able to do in the past five years.

Now we stand as an adopted nation of orange, shoulder to shoulder in our wooden barrels and Mork from Ork suspenders, our heads playing home, if only temporarily, to one of those ridiculous plastic horse-head hats that would make even Brad Pitt, dapper as he may be, look like a complete tool. Brimming with optimism, we are bolstered by the hope the Broncos will help Manning grab a second Lombardi Trophy, united in a mutual dislike for Pete Carroll.

The best Red Zone offense against the best Red Zone defense, a quarterback in the midst of the greatest season in the history of the forward pass and a notoriously loud, game-changing Twelfth Man left to scream their heads off in living rooms three thousand miles away. Yes, it would appear the only true hope Seattle has would be Chris Christie pulling a few strings to keep Manning out of the end zone.

For their part, Colts fans are left to cast a jealous eye from afar, knowing that no matter how many Super Bowls he may win as a Bronco, Peyton Manning will always be a Colt. Well at least he will be with the older generation whose attention span exceeds five minutes and realizes an appreciation for history is more than simply remembering how excellent those Pop Tarts were at breakfast.

So as ESPN beats the Manning angle to death and plays up the sophistication of New York City, its celebrities and everything it can boast that Indy could not, fear not fellow Hoosiers, let us rejoice in our forecast. No rain and a guaranteed 70 degrees. We can relax on the comfort of our own floral print couches, stuffing our faces with pork rinds, guzzling our 64 oz sodas while pausing our DVR’s to slop the hogs and open a fresh pouch of Red Man, all the while resting safe in the knowledge there’s a loaded shotgun behind the bedroom door and we hosted football’s big game long before the Big Apple. Good luck Peyton.

© 2014 Eric Walker Williams

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