Originally Posted by
Joel
Those arguments have been around longer than we've had Manning, Sanders a couple All Pro guards or Kubiaks playbook; if that logic was invalid then, it's even more so since the TEAM's improved a LOT. I mean, Decker's not bad, but he's no Sanders, no one will ever mistake Kuper (let alone Beadles; "pumped up FB" I think you called him?) for Mathis or Vasquez and I'm confident most people would agree Kubiak and Dennisons offensive game plans and playcalls are worlds better than Fox and Gases (or even Fox and McCoys.)
So excusing Mannings recent performance requires more than a Skip Bayless music video. To the extent that logic's valid at all, it's valid for ANY QB, which is one of many reasons I said we were wasting our time and Mannings until we fixed the line so we could protect our QB and give him run support: Even PFM couldn't single-handely lead us to a championship, and the proof is he hasn't. Got pretty close for a one-dimensional one-man offense, but he can't walk on water nor between raindrops (nor blitzers.)
Be honest though: Manning didn't win that Vikings game; everyone ELSE won it, and he was just along for the ride.
Manning didn't make a 72 yd TD run: Hillman and the line did all that after Manning made a rugby toss; I could do that.
Manning had ONE nice THROW to get us into the red zone (with the help of a penalty) on our first second half drive, but only because the line finally gave him FOREVER to throw without even a hint of pressure, so he could step into a high speed precision deep strike: That DRIVE (rather than a single PLAY) was all about Kubiaks playcalling maintaining the variety and balance to keep the D completely unbalanced, and the 1 yd TD pass to an uncovered Owen Daniels? Pretty sure me, you, my wife and probably even my mom make that throw, too.
The rest of our scores (i.e. 3 FGs) are mostly down to an All Pro WR and another who SHOULD be leaping for lots of jump balls and diving for lots of low ones. Meanwhile, we were at the edge of McManus' range just before the half when Manning threw one of those "high percentage" quick outs to a defender who ran it back 50 yds (because Manning's slower than Chris Harris, so are our linemen, and our WRs were sprinting the wrong way 20 yds downfield) to set up a Vikings TD. Between that and the other Int Manning gift-wrapped 13 pts for Minnesota in a game we won by just 3.
So, fine, "all he does is win." Osweiler won Sunday, too, and was about as big a factor in doing so. Again, none of that's to say Manning's finally through, but if the protection and run support remains as adequate as it was Sunday (let alone improves) and he's still throwing more wobblers, floaters and dirtballs than strikes, THEN he's done, yeah. People have been predicting his demise since he got here; each week there'd be 2-3 bad passes (because he's human) and a few doubters would declare him done while everyone else told them to shut up, then he'd launch a dozen or two strikes and they would.
Now the balance of passes (and red faces) has shifted the other way though, and unless he can correct again we're watching an ignominious final season.