NFL, never figure on loyalty

Let’s just take a few moments to appreciate what will transpire today in Indianapolis when the Colts cut Peyton Manning, which manages to be staggering despite being altogether unsurprising. Because we all knew it would happen. The desperation by the Colts’ owner, Jim Irsay, to make this look like something other than a heartless business move told us that. And we have long since learned that loyalty and $5 will buy you a latte at Starbucks and exactly nothing in professional sports. Even Wayne Gretzky was traded, as was Joe Montana. If Abraham Lincoln had been an athlete, someone would have deep-sixed him as soon as his hook shot had lost its bite.

But still. It’s Peyton Manning. He went from possibly the greatest quarterback ever to salary cap casualty in the time it takes to say, “My neck hurts.” Forbes.com estimates Manning was worth more than $325 million to the Colts, and all this got him was an express trip to the recycling bin. This would have been like Apple firing Steve Jobs after one dud iPhone update. Thanks for your genius and building us into a corporate Superman, Steve, but we’re moving on.

So, before everyone becomes fixated on where Manning will land and how Andrew Luck will fare as the new savior, there will be at least one stupefied moment while we grapple with the reality. Everyone is replaceable. Even Peyton Manning. What hope is there for the rest of us?

The most stupefied people live in Indianapolis, where a news conference with Irsay and Manning will confirm the news. Considering the mood of Colts fans, Ashley Fox of ESPN.com writes that Irsay had better be right that Manning is finished. Bob Kravitz writes in The Indianapolis Star that there are no real villains in this soap opera, but Irsay is the one who stands to lose the most here. The best he can do is for people not to hate him and resist the urge to put their season ticket renewals through the shredder. If there’s anyone who can relate to Irsay, it’s Carmen Policy, the man who shipped Montana from San Francisco to Kansas City, writes Clark Judge on CBSSports.com.

When the tears in Indy have fallen, Manning will move on somewhere else, and as Mike Freeman writes on CBSSports.com, he will use this as motivation to prove he is not finished. If Manning does get all his strength back — and a video on YouTube of him throwing in a workout at Duke suggests that he will — then the ending to this story is long from written.

Naturally, the speculation has begun on Manning’s suitors. ESPN.com rates all the teams by probability. Michael Silver of Yahoo.com has a list. So does Alex Marvez of Foxsports.com. Miami seems to reside on everyone’s list, as does Washington. Wherever he goes, his Colts teammates are betting he returns to form, at least the ones who talked to the NFL Network on Tuesday. Jerry Rice is lobbying for the 49ers to sign him, although early reports are that they are not interested.

In tabloid country (New York), it’s all figured out: Manning should sign with the Jets. The New York Post reports the team is interested (of course it does), while Steve Serby urges it to happen (of course he does). Ditto, Gary Myers of The Daily News. This, of course, has maximum sideshow value with brother Eli playing in the same stadium.

But if this story proves anything, it’s that the myth of “family” in the N.F.L. is even flimsier than a myth. Families don’t put Uncle Claude on waivers as soon as he has lost a step. In the N.F.L., loyalty only means they throw you a news conference before you hit the curb.

It would have been nice to give the nice folks in Indiana a real family story to savor, but Valparaiso was bounced from the Horizon League final, so the Drew family saga does not make its way to the N.C.A.A. tournament. Victorious Detroit, however, does have a family story of its own, with the highly recruited Ray McCallum Jr. having chosen to play there for his father instead of seeking fame and fortune elsewhere. As Percy A. Farrell writes in The Detroit Free Press, this N.C.A.A. berth was the kind of moment they had hoped to share.

Harvard got to celebrate its first N.C.A.A. bid since 1946 in surreal fashion — winning it when Princeton beat Penn in the Ivy League finale Tuesday night — and while the Quakers were crushed after falling short, writes Mike Jensen in The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Crimson got to enjoy the flip side of last year’s disappointment, writes Dana O’Neil on ESPN.com. Also falling in the thrilled category is Western Kentucky, whose Sun Belt tournament victory happened at the end of a bizarre season in which its coach got fired a day after Louisiana-Lafayette beat the Hilltoppers with a last-second shot with six players on the floor.

In the women’s conference tournaments, Connecticut’s Big East victory would seem like a routine thing considering its usual dominance, but it required the Huskies to learn how to fight back after Notre Dame had seemed to pass them this season, writes Jeff Jacobs in The Hartford Courant. It turns out, the Huskies figured out how to make that happen at just the right time, Graham Hays writes on ESPN.com.

Now, it’s time for Peyton Manning to fight back. Right after he recovers from the unkindest cut.

This article was written by Lynn Zinser and appeared in the New York Times.

Posted by Necesitamos Mas Football on 12:19 p. m.. Filed under afc , Colts , gallery , Indianapolis , noticias , Payton Manning , principal . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0