Choking on Peyton Manning’s Circumstances

↵Peyton Manning’s Colts did not come out of San Diego victorious, so Peyton Manning’s performance has been questioned. He’s the MVP and the team’s best player, and he plays the position that touches the ball almost every down. For better or worse, QBs receive a disproportionate share of blame, glory and attention. So the questions about Manning aren’t suprising, not in the least.
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↵But one particular question dredged up in Dashiell Bennett’s Deadspin post this morning -- “Peyton Manning: Still a Choker?” -- seems completely off the wall. The concept of “choking” is so tenuous in the first place that any piece of analysis based on the question runs the risk of immediate silliness. Bennett even nods to this truth, writing “I hate when announcers make excuses like ‘heart’ and ‘determination’ and ‘the will to win.’” Most of us hate it, because it’s bad analysis. It’s simplification of a complex situation to an easy and unprovable theory. The Colts lost by a TD in overtime. We can analyze the myriad play calls, moves, flags, tackles, missed tackles, blocks, drops and overthrows ... or we can blame one of the 60 players for exhibiting a lack of something we can’t even see.
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↵Manning is open game for criticism. But it should be criticism based on something more than a cracked up theory from a lifetime of Bill Simmons columns. Even in a win, you can criticize the players for bad decisions or lackluster effort. (Example: Philip Rivers made some Brett Favre-like throws.) Would you make this criticism -- that Manning is a choker -- if the Colts had won? Of course not. And given the number of extremely close plays in this one -- the two chain-link 1st downs for San Diego, that awful defensive holding call in overtime -- it’s plausible Indy could have won; basically, it was a 50-50 toss-up in the fourth quarter. The circumstances of the game allowed San Diego to win, and Manning to lose.
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↵So much of sports comes down to circumstances, but some element of human nature refuses to allow us to chalk up things to chance. A circumstance or three allowed the Chargers victory, so Rivers is a hero and Manning is a goat. It’s like blaming a broken leg on the black cat. If someone told you in all seriousness, “I broke my leg because a black cat crossed my path last Halloween,” you’d laugh, right? That’s the equivalent of the “choker” business when you’re talking about Manning, who has had no problem winning a ton of games (some important, like the Super Bowl!) over the past decade.↵