This particular Sunday…

On this particular Sunday, I had a pretty good day.  I got to see the Broncos game, well, at least most of it.  CBS decided to switch to a more competitive game about a minute into the fourth quarter.  I was a little more than annoyed.  Not only did I really want to see the rest of the game but Peyton Manning had tied one of Dan Marino’s records.  I really wanted to see if he would move on to second place for most TD passes in NFL history with 421.  I kept track of the game through the NFL website and although the Broncos had another touchdown this time the running back scored.  I wish Peyton had been able to make another touchdown but I am also glad that I didn’t miss it.  Next week, the Broncos are playing the Chargers so I am guessing he will make his next touchdown then.  Here’s a great article on Peyton and the record.

I didn’t get a lot done this weekend, although I’ve kept up on my writing for NaNo and just cleared 20,000 words.  I am definitely doing better with the rewrite and realizing a lot of things that didn’t make sense in my rough draft.  Hopefully I am catching most of those things as I go through the chapters.

 

Today, I was thankful for the kind of lazy day that it was.  I got to watch football, I did some writing.  I got a few things done but I didn’t spend the entire day worried about what needed to be done or what I hadn’t gotten done.

 

 

Better than ever…

So, Monday I was talking about following Peyton Manning through his football career at Tennessee.  I didn’t see all of the games but I definitely kept up with scores and stats.

I watched the NFL draft drama play out between Peyton and Ryan Leaf.  Peyton proved his work ethic when he showed up to the combine in shape and ready to play.  In contrast, Ryan Leaf showed up “out of shape and overweight”*  Leaf weighed in at the combine at 20 pounds over his playing weight, causing many experts to question Leaf’s pro-readiness.

As we all know, the Colts chose Peyton as their first pick and Leaf went to the San Diego Chargers.  I followed Peyton and the Colts although we didn’t see a lot of games here in Arizona for the first few years.  As the Colts played better, their games started being shown on TV in our area.  It didn’t take long before I had become a huge Colts fan.  I cried when they beat the Patriots to make it to the Superbowl in 2007.   I spent the second half of SuperBowl XLI pacing behind the couch and of course, I cried when I realized they were going to win it.  Then I grumbled when not more than 30 minutes after winning the game the commentators made the point of saying that he wouldn’t repeat.  You’d think they’d give him more than 30 minutes to savor the victory before they started hacking on him but whatever.

Fast forward to last year, horror of horrors, Peyton is injured and can’t play.  The NFL being on strike delayed treatment and surgery and we missed the whole season.  Well, we missed seeing Peyton for the entire season.  It was hard to watch and we didn’t get many of the games on TV.

Then in the off season Irsay cleaned house and I lost all of my favorite players including Peyton.  Dallas Clark went to Tampa Bay, Jeff Saturday is with the Packers, Pierre Garcon is in D.C. with the Redskins.  There are a few players that stayed like Freeney and Vinatieri but for the most part the team I’ve cheered for is gone.  I know that it’s part of the game, it’s just business.

Here’s what I realized, I am a fan of the players.  I am cheering for the players every week not the front office or the owner.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not stupid I realize that tough decisions need to be made to keep the team successful on and off of the field.  I just think that the Colts dropped the ball on this one.  (Pun may have been intended but I am not sure.)  The team relied on Peyton for so many years and then cut him loose when things got tight.  He restructured his contract twice over the years to help them keep other players.  Ugh, I could rant about this all night.  

Jump to now, and Peyton is with the Broncos.  I think it was a good pick, we all figured he would stay AFC to avoid direct competition with Eli and it seems  like a good fit between Peyton and the coaches.

The Steelers vs. Broncos game was the featured Sunday night game on the opening weekend of the regular season.  The Broncos had a slow start but Peyton had a blazing second half.  There were a few passes that were so perfect, so textbook, so vintage Peyton, it was breathtaking.  (Well, breathtaking to me.)  There was a lot of talk about how he would perform, he had neck surgery, he’d been away for a year, he’s old, you name it, they were talking about it.  His stats were good, completing 19-of-26 passes (73.1 percent) for 253 yards, two touchdowns and zero interceptions for a 129.2 passer rating during the 31–19 win over the Steelers..  A 71-yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas was his 400th of his career, moving him to third place behind Dan Marino and Brett Favre.

It was a good night, back to normal and seriously…

Better than ever!

*Big Lead Sports article from March 20th, 2012

**Sports Illustrated article from April 13, 1998

Where it started…

Back in the mid 1990’s, I was watching a lot of college football.   NFL football was in transition, at least for me.  I had grown up a Cowboys fan, with no team in Arizona and Danny White, an ASU stand out at quarterback it was a given.  When Tom Landry was fired and Danny White released my loyalty to them faded quickly.  The Cardinals had moved from St. Louis to Arizona in 1988 and were consistently horrible from the beginning.  I remember when talk first started to circle that Phoenix might get a team.  I talked to anyone and everyone about it.  I wanted one of the expansion teams to come here, I thought we needed something new and fresh, not some team that another town didn’t want.  I was about fifteen at the time and although most people agreed with me apparently the NFL thought otherwise.  So, Cardinals left St. Louis and we got the Bidwells, seriously not the best deal.  

I wasn’t their biggest fan but I loved football and tried to give them the benefit of the doubt.  The Cardinals had a 7  – 9 record the first year, followed by several years of 4 – 12 and 5 – 11 records and didn’t do better than the 7 – 9 until 1998.   They had front office issues, coach issues and weren’t exactly community friendly.   Instead of just picking whatever NFL team was winning at the time I started watching more college football and let the business minded NFL go on without me.  I am sure it was hard for them to do but they seemed to survive it.

Saturdays were great, NCAA football had games starting at 10:00am and all through the afternoon and evening.  I was back in college at the time and did a lot of my studying during those football games.  The early games would be Big-10 and ACC,  the SEC and marquee games midday, later games would feature PAC-10 and WAC or the occasional big match up at night.

It was during this time that I started watching a certain Tennessee quarterback named Peyton Manning.  At first I was picking the Tennessee game just because everyone knew it would be a good game, no matter who they played.  Then I was simply impressed by Peyton (and yes, I call him Peyton, I mean I’ve been watching him for over 15 years, right?).  On the field, Peyton was confident and efficient and off of the field, in every sideline report he was nice, respectful and smart.  

In a world where professional athletes acted like they owned the world it was refreshing to see him so well grounded.

So, that’s how it started, later this week I will talk more about where we are now.