Limping in As the No. 1 Seed: Why Even Start Peyton at All?

Throughout all this talk of an undefeated season and greatest team of all time, the Indianapolis Colts maintained the position that they were not interested in immortality and just wanted to win another championship.

Of course you want to win another championship. But newsflash…there’s a new champion every year. Getting to be 19-0 is an accomplishment unmatched.

Now, maybe they were taking into account what happened to the 18-0 Patriots in 2007. But they didn’t lose the Super Bowl because of injured players or lack of rest. And resting players for Indy hasn’t exactly worked out in the past (uh, 2005 anyone?).

So what if the Colts DON’T win the Super Bowl this year? All this rest would be all for naught. And refresh my memory, but wasn’t it the year they didn’t rest their starters that they actually did not choke in the playoffs and went all the way?

And to have the Jets, a team whose head coach assumed they were eliminated from playoff contention a week ago, come in and beat you at home is not only shocking, its demoralizing. Not only is their undefeated season history, so is their amazing regular season winning streak.

With the bye week already assured, basically the Colts have a longer Christmas vacation than Randy Quaid’s character in the actual Christmas Vacation film.

Maybe they should install Xboxes and DVD players on the field during the game for the players. How about sofas and motorized scooters? Will that give them enough rest?

Now I understand pulling your starters when you’re winning, but when you’re only up by five points in the third quarter that hardly falls into that category. If you were interested in rest, why even play the starters at all?

And the quarterback they put in looks like he just came off the practice squad. Oh wait, I forgot. He did. I felt like I was watching a remake of Paper Lion in which Alan Alda plays author George Plimpton who got to play in a preseason game with the Lions and then write about his experience.

It got to the point that I began to think Colts coach Jim Caldwell bet money on the Jets to win and simply took a dive. Or perhaps he’s afraid of teams like the Ravens or Steelers coming to town and WANTS the Jets to get into the playoffs.

This entire year people have pointed out that Jim Caldwell is off to the best start of any rookie head coach in history. But his decisions yesterday showed he really is a coordinator at heart who still hasn’t grown into a role as head coach.