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 The desperate New York Jets travel to Indy this Sunday. The blitz happy Jets are as desperate as they come at this point in the season.
The Jets have blown opportunity after opportunity to put themselves in good position for a playoff spot but the failure or other teams to execute has left the door open a crack. They Jets don't own many tie breakers and have to win both remaining games and get some help to make the playoffs.
From a Peyton Manning playing or not perspective, playing him against the Jets is a VERY risky proposition as the Jets specialize in hitting the quarterback. Even when they don't get a sack, they hit the QB. It's what they do. Their entire philosophy is built on pressure. Pressure the QB and make the ball come out early.
While the Jets have let both the Falcons and the Jaguars come down the field and score on them in the last two minutes (those two defensive gaffs are currently keeping them out of the playoffs) they do have the league leading scoring defense at 15.8 points per game.
The prudent thing to do here is to not play Manning. What they should do is let him start the game to keep his streak intact and then get him out of there so there is no risk of injury.
In last week's post about Manning reader Henry Mathis commented;
"If it was my team I wouldn't even bring the guy to the stadium. I don't want him having sex, shitting too hard or even getting a bad night's sleep. He's the whole friggin' team! Who cares about 16-0. If something happens, they will be sorry."
You really can't argue with that logic.
The Colts signed QB Drew Willy off their practice squad today, a sign that Peyton Manning will likely rest Sunday. Willy will start the game as the No. 3 QB but will become Curtis Painter's backup if/when Manning takes a seat.
That said, my feeling has changed on this during the week and I think that despite the party line being that 19-0 doesn't mean anything to them, the Colts really would like to have that on their resume.
Don't think for a second that Peyton Manning, a great competitor, (the best quarterback in the game) doesn't want to face the New York Jets (the best defense against the pass @ 158.9 yards per game) and complete a few throws on all world cornerback Darrelle Revis.
Besides that, ‘Jets Law' which states if the Jets can get screwed, they will means that Peyton will play just because that's what the Jets fans don't want to see. The other part of that is that if he doesn't play and the Colts put in Curtis Painter who has never taken an NFL snap, the Jets will likely lose as well. The most likely scenario is that Painter will drive them the length of the filed in the final moments, simply because that's also what happens to the Jets. I would venture to guess that if the Jest season ended that way that no one in NY would be surprised as it's hard to be surprised at the seemingly endless way the NY Jets have seemed to lose games over the years.
I'll take the Jets +5.5, but have zero confidence that they can pull it out, no matter who QB for the Colts is. - Robert Finley
P.S. - No matter how it works out, my headline will be correct as there is no way that Peyton Manning does at least take the first snap or play the first series as the Colts will not let him loose his consecutive games started streak.
Bob has been covering College and Pro Football as an "interested party" for over 20 years. He's pretty darn good at it too......
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