Well, if you're a one-man team, you've got to expect a bad season when your man goes down:
Manning isn't just the most valuable football player of his era. He belongs in the conversation for most valuable in any team sport ever. He's mastered the game like no one since Otto Graham took the Cleveland Browns to the championship match in each of his 10 seasons more than a half-century ago.
Indy's error-riddled, injury-plagued 0-5 start to this season, while Manning recovers from two neck surgeries that sidelined him for the first time in his pro career, is a testament to it. But it's only one of many.
"We've been spoiled by great quarterback play for a long time," Colts defender Robert Mathis said after a second straight second-half letdown resulted in a 28-24 loss to Kansas City last weekend. "But the fact of the matter is we have got to hold our end up."
Tell me if I'm wrong, corporate drones, but aren't we told from our first day of work that no one is irreplaceable? We hire on, learn our part, then pass the knowledge gained along to our replacements. Remember, there is no "I" in team (memo to the next jerk who says that to me: Yeah, well, there's no "U" in mine). You'd think that bit of wisdom would be more than obvious to those in chare of team sports, but it's amazing how often they ignore it. It took years before the Bears put enough other talent around Walter Payton to win the 1985 Super Bowl.
