Peyton Manning Injury: Why Indianapolis Colts QB Is Simply Wasting a Roster Spot

It's becoming painfully evident that the Indianapolis Colts aren't real serious about their season.

These guys are in total denial.

Peyton Manning was sitting in the Raymond James Stadium coaches' box on Monday night, getting a full gander of what a fourth straight loss looks like, this time at the hands of the blood-thirsty Buccaneers in Tampa.

While Manning watched the proceedings, the flip card handed out to the media types in the press box showed Manning as the starting quarterback.

Go check the team's website and they've still got him at the No. 1 quarterback on the depth chart.

Even the clueless can stumble over these clues that show an organization is wasting a valuable roster spot on a guy who recently had serious neck surgery.

This one is tough to understand. With injuries mounting, the Colts simply won't remand Manning to the injured reserve list, although he hinted that could happen.

Once again, we pose the question: Is this team the least bit serious about the season, especially now that it has belly-flopped it's way to an 0-4 first quarter season accounting?

The only sensible guy in all of this Colt manure may be Manning himself.

"I think you have to have hope until the doctors rule you out," Manning says. But would expect him to say anything different? That's a good company guy saying what he's supposed to say, especially when the organization has given him a contract larger than the gross domestic product of a lot of small countries.

In a roundabout way, it sounds for all intents and purposes that Manning is also hinting that the Colts SHOULD put him on the IR:

"We're have a lot of injuries so if they come to me and say they need to make a move, I won't fight them on that," he said.

That's Manning being a sensible man, if no one else in the Colts organization can be.

In that Monday night loss, the same organization didn't notice much of the good backup Curtis Painter accomplished as the starting quarterback as they haven't given him the nod for a second start.

Yet.

Painter should start. The Colts are at home against the Kansas City Chiefs, another walking disaster from the bottom of the current NFL pecking order.

Manning?

He's been cleared to actually stand on the sidelines.

Isn't that great?