Manning, Colts Pass Offense Again Rank Among League's Best
INDIANAPOLIS – Peyton Manning's approach was simple.
Manning, the Colts' 13-year veteran quarterback, this past season followed a difficult statistical stretch – a three-game losing streak that dropped the Colts to second-place in the AFC South – with a four-game, consistent stretch of play.
That final stretch put the Colts in the playoffs.
It also helped put Manning in the Pro Bowl for an 11th time.
Manning, a four-time Associated Press National Football League Most Valuable Player, was asked later in the season, what changed – what allowed the Colts to return to the playoffs and what allowed the team's passing offense to again finish the season as one of the NFL's elite units.
Manning said there was no complexity to the situation.
"I wanted to play better," Manning said late in the season. "Somebody was asking, 'Did you have a team meeting or did you try to help other guys?' I was trying to help myself. I thought before I started trying to help other guys do their jobs, I needed to be sure I'm doing my job.
"I didn't think I was doing my job well enough. I was determined to play better."
He did, and the result was a passing offense that finished the season as it started:
As a major reason for the Colts' success.
Manning, who never has missed a game in 13 NFL seasons, finished the season having completed 450 of 679 passes for 4,700 yards and 33 touchdowns with 17 interceptions. The 33 touchdowns tied for the second-highest total of his career – behind only his 49-touchdown season in 2004 – but teammates afterward spoke as much of Manning off the field as on it.
The Colts, who had made the playoffs the previous eight seasons – leading the AFC South from start to finish in five of those seasons – entered December in second-place in the AFC South. It was just the third time in the nine-year history of the AFC South the Colts had been out of first place in December.
A slip at the wrong time in December and the Colts would have been out of the playoffs.
Leadership was key, and running back Joseph Addai said Manning assumed that role. Throughout the months, Addai said Manning was "the kind of quarterback that you want to be in a tight situation."
"Whenever you're in a bad situation, it's just like a family, whoever is the head of the family and you're in a crisis, the person that is supposed to lead, stands up and gives you the right direction," Addai said. "That is what Peyton was doing. No matter what the situation, come back Monday, let's get back going. Everybody was following along. All the veterans were doing that, (and) all the young guys were seeing that. . . .
"That's what they teach the young guys when they come in: if you don't know how to do it, watch the older guys. That is what Peyton was doing, just little things. We'd have extra meetings, not punishment, just extra meetings to focus in on what we were trying to do for that particular team.
"I think Peyton did a great job as far as showing us what we needed to do when we were in those bad situations."
The Colts finished the season as the NFL's fourth-ranked passing offense, and as was the case with much of the rest of the roster, the area overcame significant injury issues.
Reggie Wayne, who has had more than 1,000 yards receiving in seven consecutive seasons, caught a career-high 111 passes for 1,355 yards and six touchdowns. He also made a fifth consecutive Pro Bowl, but elsewhere, the receiving corps overcame significant adversity.
The Colts last season placed more than a dozen players on injured reserve, and one of the areas that faced the most issues was tight end and receiver. Dallas Clark, a Pro Bowl tight end in 2009, missed 10 games with a wrist injury, and wide receiver Austin Collie and Anthony Gonzalez also finished the season out of the lineup. Addai, significant to the passing offense as a receiver and a blocker, missed half the season with a neck injury.
Still, Manning – who has thrown for more than 4,000 yards in 11 of 13 NFL seasons – not only did so again this past season, he finished 2010 with career-highs in attempts, completions and passing yards. Manning has surpassed the 4,500-yard passing mark three times in his career, the most ever by an NFL quarterback.
Two of those times have come in the last two seasons.
And with the Colts needing victories in nearly every game in the final month, Manning was again efficient and productive. Manning, who threw for 1,046 yards and eight touchdowns with 11 interceptions during the three-game losing streak in November, completed 97 of 145 passes for 991 yards and nine touchdowns with two interceptions in the final four games of the season.
"I think his numbers indicate that he is still as productive as anyone else, and what he did (this past season) was what he always does," Colts Head Coach Jim Caldwell said late in the season. "He focused in on what he is doing, he took his time and if there were things he needed to get corrected, he certainly is probably tougher on himself than anyone else, and he was able to get that done."
Said Manning, "Finally, things started going our way. Even throughout that three-game losing stretch, there were plenty of good things in those games. The end results were losses, and we did have turnovers, but we were still doing some good things.
"You try to build off those and try to eliminate the negative plays and just continue to work. As (former head coach) Jim Mora used to say, 'Keep sawing wood.' That's kind of an expression we use around here.
"If you keep doing that, hopefully some good things will turn."
