It's too soon to condemn
Manning
Posted: Mon September 14,
1998
I'm adamant about this. You can't go taking
Peyton
Manning's temperature every five minutes. He's two or three years
away from judgment day, and to ask after every game about
his progress is absurd.
Steve
Young, in his second NFL start, was eight of 17 for 53 yards.
John
Elway was nine of 21 for 106
yards.
And one other thing: It's all well and good to wonder
before the draft and before the season about whether
Manning or
Ryan
Leaf is the better quarterback. But after two NFL games, I can
no more determine who will be better over the long NFL haul
than Joe Fan. Neither can
Bill
Polian or
Bobby
Beathard, the men who drafted the pair in Indianapolis and San
Diego, respectively. I like what Polian said Sunday night
after Manning's three-interception horror show at New
England:
"Peyton got undressed tonight, and that's life.
Everyone around the country will pick up the newspapers
tomorrow and read that Ryan Leaf won and Peyton Manning
threw three interceptions, and think that Peyton Manning is
a bust. As one of the mavens said
last week, if we had it to do over again, we made the wrong
pick, and blah, blah, blah ... That's what the 25-cent
pundits who don't know whether it's blown up or stuffed
will write tomorrow. And so what? It's great that they're
going to write it. We
can put it on the bulletin board and remind guys how little
people really know about this game. I'm glad it's happening
now.''
Polian takes it too far—no writer, and I doubt many
talk-show geeks, will declare a winner in the Manning-Leaf
duel this soon—but his point is right on. No one's
going to know if Manning and Leaf will be great until
they've played 25 or 30 games.
Period.
Offensive Player of the
Week:
Isaac
Bruce, WR, St. Louis. After two games, Bruce leads all receivers
with 21 catches for 323 yards, and just think how many more
he'd have if
Tony
Banks threw to him the majority of the time instead of to the
other
team.
Defensive Player of the
Week:
Reggie
White, DE, Green Bay. Three sacks for a guy who turns 37 in
December? In one half? In the biggest game Green Bay will
play in the first half of the season? This guy is one of
the alltime greats, at any
position.
Special Teams Player of the
Week:
Reggie
Barlow, PR, Jacksonville. In the Jaguars' 50th regular-season
game, the team got its first punt return for a touchdown.
The 85-yard return by Barlow—his first ever for a
score—included four terrific blocks. The return put
the Jags up 7-zip on K.C., and they
never trailed. One quarter later, Barlow was on his way to
another long one—until Chiefs special-teamer
Melvin
Johnson stopped him with a diving ankle tackle after a 38-yard
return.
Coach of the
Week:
Mike Holmgren,
Green Bay. Not for getting his team geeked up to score 61
points in two games after the offense had a horrendous
preseason, but for his curious substitution when
Dorsey
Levens went down with an ankle sprain Sunday in the 23-15 win
over Tampa. Instead of putting in the NFL's leading
preseason rusher,
Travis
Jervey, first Holmgren put FB
William
Henderson, who can't run, in a one-back set. Then he popped in an
undrafted free agent from Ball State named
Michael
Blair. Now, even most of the Lambeau football freaks had to
admit they had never heard of Blair. But it was a gutsy
call, and the right one. Holmgren preaches to his backs
that they can't fumble, and Jervey fumbled three times in
the preseason and got saved
from a fumble by a questionable whistle in Week 1. So
Holmgren walked the walk. Good
work.
Goat of the
Week:
Scott
Mitchell, QB, Detroit. Mitchell's interception gave the Bengals an
overtime win yesterday. But if I'm
Bobby
Ross, I'm thinking: As soon as
Charlie
Batch is ready—maybe for the home Monday-nighter Sept. 28
with Tampa Bay, when the crowd would roar its
welcome—he's my quarterback. Why not play Batch on
Sunday in Minnesota? Because the Vikings pass rush and
crowd would eat the rookie
alive.
The 10 Things I
Think I Think this
week:
1. I think I saw with my own eyes how much the loss of
LG Dave
Szott will hurt Kansas City. Second play, Jags-Chiefs.
Jacksonville middle linebacker
Bryan
Schwartz burst through the left guard-center gap and buried K.C.
running back
Donnell
Bennett for a three-yard loss. I want to emphasize this: Of all
the injuries suffered in the first two weeks of this
season, mark my words—Szott's complete tear of a
tendon in his left biceps will be the most significant. The
Chiefs have to run to win, and
he's their best run-blocker. They won't see him until at least
December, and perhaps not for the rest of the year. That's
serious surgery. The tendon linking the left biceps had to
be reattached to the bone near the crook of the
elbow.
2. I think Jacksonville might not be such a loyal NFL
market after all. I'm looking across the stadium from my
press-box perch Sunday-—and it's not the Saints in
town, for crying out loud; it's a game that for all we know
might be a playoff preview—and
I see yawning gaps of empty upper-deck seats between the
30s. During the week QB
Mark
Brunell implored the fans to be louder for this game, decrying the
wine-and-cheese set that frequents the seats close to the
field. Hey, don't you have to fill the stadium before the
crowd becomes a
factor?
3. I think
Dick
Vermeil won't be the death of the Rams. Tony Banks will
be.
4. I think when
Tony
Dungy is sitting home watching the Super Bowl on TV, one of his
thoughts is going to be: Raymond James Stadium cost us the
chance to be here. The construction of that new facility
pushed Tampa Bay on the road for seven straight weeks in
the preseason and
regular season. So the Bucs have started 0-2 in the NFC Central
and, two games back in every conceivable playoff tiebreaker
already, have almost no chance to gain home-field
advantage. And tell me this: You think the Bucs are going
to Minnesota or Green Bay
or San Francisco in early January and coming out of there
with a
win?
5. I think
the Redskins better win tonight against the Niners at
home, because they're not going into the Kingdome in six days
and surviving the pass-rush of those five millionaires in
Seattle.
6. I think
Terrell
Davis's 138-yard first quarter against the Cowboys is the
running back's equivalent of a
Sammy
Sosa hitting four homers in a
game.
7. I think I know what kind of thoughts
Jim
Kelly is having about
Jim
Harbaugh this
morning.
8. I think
Deion
Sanders said it right to
Neil Smith
as they walked off the field at Mile High last night:
"You guys are going to the Bowl again,
man."
9. I think there will be no bigger upset this season than
the Saints starting
2-0.
10. I think I knew my postgame interview with
Derrick
Thomas 13 minutes after Jacksonville's 21-16 win over the Chiefs
would not go well when I asked him how he felt his matchup
with
Tony
Boselli went. "Peter," he said, with eyes of daggers,
"don't ask me any more dumb
questions."
Here's my weekly top
10:
1. Green Bay
(2-0)
2. Denver
(2-0)
3. Pittsburgh
(2-0)
4. Jacksonville
(2-0)
5. Minnesota
(2-0)
6. San Francisco
(2-0)
7. New England
(1-1)
8. Seattle
(2-0)
9. Kansas City
(1-1)
10. (tie) Tampa Bay
(0-2)
Miami
(2-0)
See you next
week.
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