Love him or hate him, you have to admit he picked us apart with relative ease. Best QB ever? Arguably. Video - http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d81606990&template=with-video-with-comments&confirm=true It was late in the first half, and the Jets' top-ranked defense was taking the league's MVP to the woodshed. The score was 17-6. The Jets had the momentum, but with 2:07 to play in the half, Peyton Manning had the football. The next two plays would be the turning point in the game and an example of how Manning combines the physical and mental aspects of his position like no one else in the NFL. Facing second-and-10 at their own 20, the Colts lined up in a three-receiver set. The Jets showed two-man coverage: Three cornerbacks playing each receiver man-to-man with two safeties supporting deep. After the snap, the Jets corners turned their back on Manning to head downfield. Manning knew immediately that rookie Austin Collie would be open on an out pattern. With time to throw, Manning hit Collie for an 18-yard gain. The next play shows the true genius of Peyton Manning. With the ball at the Colts' 38, the Jets showed the exact same coverage as Manning called the play at the line. The Jets anticipated that Manning would read the coverage and throw another out pattern. Instead of two-man coverage, they called "Cover 2 trap" to the slot side of the Colts' formation. This time, instead of turning and running with Pierre Garcon, Dwight Lowery looked back inside at Collie, anticipating another out route. The corollary was that the deep safety then played over the top of Garcon, with no deep resonsibility on Collie in the slot. If Manning threw an out against this defense, it would land into the arms of the waiting Lowery. The objective was to bait Manning into throwing into the teeth of the coverage. But as the Jets anticipated Manning, Manning anticipated the Jets. He called for the slot receiver, Collie, to run a seam route. With the safety rolling over to the outside receiver, Jets cornerback Drew Coleman would have no safety help on Collie. Coleman held his own in coverage, but Manning delivered the ball to the spot just beyond Coleman's reach. The result was a 46-yard gain to the Jets' 16-yard line. Indianapolis would score on the next play to make it 17-13 at the half. But the key to the drive was Manning's ability to exploit the Jets' two-man coverage and anticipate the two-man trap on the following play, combined with incredible accuracy on both throws. The sequence of events sparked the Colts to a 30-17 victory and demonstrated why Manning is the true master of his game.
He's the smartest QB in the history of the game, he knows what the defense will bring, and he constantly makes adjustments to create mismatches, that's what happened on that play. The Saints are gonna have to pretty much live in the film room or DVR the Playbook show on the NFL Network these next 8 days to figure out how to get Manning off his rhythm.
There's no doubt Manning found his rythm, liked what he was seeing in some of the mismatches and started carving us up like a Christmas turkey. But the absence of Shonn Greene in the 2nd half really sealed our fate too, it was a combination of both, I think, because we couldn't convert 3rd downs like we were doing and taht was key to getting the momentum back, controlling the game and keeping Manning off the field and out of rythm. And I'm not taking anything away from Manning, but his accuracy and timing in the 2nd half was uncanny... even for Manning. A lot of of those throws were so perfect I doubt even he could duplicate them exactly as accurately as he did even if we played the game over again 5 more times. I mean, they were just undefendable throws, some of them, in exactly the right places. And the catches were perfect too, so I'm saying I wish we had that 2nd half over again and I think he doesn't make the same number of completions. But Shonn Greene's loss was huge in the 2nd half. No running game, no spark, 3 and outs, MAnning back on the field again without even breaking sweat, back into his rythm and timing... it was a killer not to control the clock like we had been doing. The game was as much of a heartbreaker as the Denver AFC game for me and went down in exactly the same way... come out in the 2nd half and it's like a tale of two cities. Two completely different teams playing one another after halftime. Unbelievable.
Manning can read RR's defenses pretty easily. It took him about two quarters to figure out the coverages and make the adjustments, what sets him apart from others is that he can put the football in the tiniest of spaces. The TD pass to Garcon was fucking absurd, he was completely covered but the ball still found it's way into Garcon's hands. Hopefully Sanchez learns to read defenses half as good as Peyton.
Absolutely, I felt that then and still do. Whilst TJ can get the hard yards, Greene has the freshness and ability to break big gains when it counts, and that night , it was needed and we didn't have it, especially as TJs knee was far from perfect.
Manning did look like a machine that game, but we're gonna have to find a way to deal with him. It would have been interesting to see how he would have handled things with 360 lbs. of Jenkins coming in the front door.
I believe, after Manning torched us so quickly and effortlessly in the final minutes of the 1st half (in what I almost call a "cheap" touchdown, or an "easy" touchdown), that our DEF came out in the 2nd half with the intention of not letting that happen again and not full-out blitzing to prevent that kind of TD. While I'm not saying we looked like we were in prevent defense (or playing "not to lose,") I do believe we stopped putting the kind of pressure on Manning that we had going in the 1st half, IMO. The result was disastrous, because Manning got a rythm going that no one could defend against, and he had all day in that pocket to slice and dice. We would have almost been better off still blitzing like crazy and daring him to burn us... at least it might have thrown his rythm and accuracy and timing off just enough to let our corners at least deflect some of the passes. As is was, he had all day, and I was just sitting there going, "This is not good... not good at all!" And like I say, the absence of Shonn Greene was just the icing on the cake. I found myself cursing at the screen and at Jones in particular, because it was obvious his 2-yard runs were getting us nowhere on the 3rd down conversions and Schotty was not about to turn Sanchez loose enough to start risking him throwing multiple INTs again like mid-season. That Sanchez part of the equation will improve as Sanchez gets better, but the running game is NOT going anywhere with those 2-yard runs by Jones, who seemed to have reverted back to his time earlier in the season where it almost looks like he's playing touch football for Christ's sake... one grab at the flag and he goes down in an immediate pile... not even a fall forward for an additional 2 yards. As soon as I realized he was back to his short yardage gig and Greene was out for the remainder, I knew we were in deep shit with Manning controlling everything and us controlling nothing.
I have no doubt he could have put at least 44 up on the board if he had to or wanted to. He definitely took his foot off the gas towards the end, which I thought was a classy move. As soon as he knew he had the game won, he stopped trying to score.
Yeah, you could see the game slipping away. As an aside, how many OC's work games from "upstairs"?...and I wonder if Schotty ever tried it.
Smartest QB ever...The handshake with Sanchez and the post-game comments were classic btw...Love me some Peyton Manning man.
The last time I felt this way about a player was Walter Payton. Its hard to take when it your team that gets torched, but when you see genuine greatness, you feel it and respect it. Funny, never felt that way about Brady. Did Brady deserve it? Maybe, but maybe my Pats hate just prevented it. One day we will have Colts fans praising Sanchez and reminiscing about how hes now compared to Manning. Some way to go yet.
I agree with most of what has been said but I do not believe they took their foot off the gas,,in fact the Colts kept throwing on obvious running downs, they may not have gone endzone but Manning was still throwing the ball. I think our team will only get better and that this playoff experience will do wonders for everyone, from the coach to the qb to all of them----------this said I can only hope we get another playoff shot at THE COLTS next year BUT at our place!!!
Once Greene went down the Jets weren't going to win that game, literally no chance at all short of Manning going down. I just turned off the critical aspect of my fandom at that point and sat back and enjoyed the spectacle of the Jets playing in an AFC championship game. You can't get too pissed off when your team loses because it has no business being on the same field with the opponent, especially when it was injuries that caused that. 1998 really pissed me off at the end because the Jets collapsed in the second half for no good reason. This year there were very good reasons and none of them were worth bitching about.
The loss of Strickland hurt our ability to blitz while leaving the corners in single man coverage. This.
Well, that's right. I forgot about Strickland, and that set Manning up rather nicely once he found out. But also, pulling the veteran Lito Shephard right from the start, who has played in games like this and seen games like this in his veteran career with the Eagles, for example, in favor of an inexperienced corner to cover whose throws? Peyton Manning? Are you fucking kidding? He's fast, yeah. But come on.
Rex did cover that issue about Sheppard. Something about the scheme and how Strickland excelled in that gameplan they were going to run so he started Strickland. I don't remember the specifics but he was called out on it by the press.
We need to find a healtheir version of Donald Strickland, he was a beast in that first Pats game and then he got hurt. I'm sure he missed probably 7 or 8 games this year but when he was in there he was very good and allowed our D to play aggressive. If I was not a Jet fan watching Manning last week would have been a thing of beauty but instead it was a nightmare and is going to take a long time to get over. There is no doubt we would have beaten the Saints this time around as Sanchez wouldn't have been in position to lose the game for us. I'm also convinced that something is wring wirth Brees. Every pass he threw in the 4th Q and OT last seemed to have something off.
I'm thinking the same thing and now you've validated it. Something else to haunt me now. 30 freaking minutes away from a SB victory. Somebody shoot me already.
