*For anyone following the Colts the past 10 years, it’s hard to approach a game when they’re playing the Jets and not recall the AFC Wild Card game following the 2002 season.
Remember? Jets 41, Colts 0.
We bring this up not because the game is pertinent in any way, but what’s striking is that the Colts since that game have won six of seven AFC South titles, made three AFC Championship games, won a Super Bowl, and not had a regular season with fewer than 12 victories.
And, oh yes, QB Peyton Manning has been Associated Press Most Valuable Player four times.
No player ever had been MVP in a career more than three times, but in seven seasons since that Jets loss, Manning has won it four, won a Super Bowl in another one of the seasons and was runner-up for award in another season.
Not bad for a player that very much needed to change his style in 2002.
That’s the overriding memory I have of that game – not what went on on the field, but what was being said in the press box that day about Manning. As the then-fifth-year quarterback changed plays at the line of scrimmage, gyrated and motioned and ran the play clock near :00, more than one writer talked of how Manning needed to stop that, how he needed to just run the play and the Colts would never be serious contenders until that element was removed from the offense.
Well, so much for the voices from the Press Box . . .
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