Before we begin, allow me to voice my opinion about Peyton Manning as the NFL MVP. After seeing what has happened with the Colts this season, the NFL should be able to go back and take the MVP award away from anyone who has won it the last decade and hand it to Manning. Peyton has been outperformed statistically during some of those seasons, but is there really any arguing he is more important to his team than any other player? With him, the Colts are an annual Super Bowl contender. Without No. 18, they are among the NFL’s worst teams.
With that rant out of the way, let’s turn our attention to the fact that the Colts hit rock bottom Week 7 with their 62-7 loss to the Saints. Those who were watching probably felt as though they were witnessing a varsity-J.V. scrimmage. Indy was that bad. After the game, Jeff Saturday voiced his opinion about the debacle and basically stated the obvious: That the Colts were dominated in all facets.
Blue Stampede, an SB Nation Colts blog, chose to focus solely on the fact that Saturday said Indy was “out-coached” despite the fact that the veteran center was trashing the team as a whole. Needless to say, Saturday did not appreciate being called out by the blogger.
“That was ridiculous. You’ve got a 45-year-old man who lives with his mom, down in his basement, freaking blogging about something that was a direct misquote,” Saturday said according to the National Football Post. “It had nothing to do with what I said. At 62-7, there was no redeeming qualities in the way any of us participated. And this is a team thing, 100 percent. I made it perfectly clear.
“Coach Caldwell didn’t have on any pads Sunday. We did, and all of us as a team failed to get the job done. I can assure you I don’t need the media to clarify what I’m saying. I speak pretty clearly and I was insulted that somebody would do that and try to divide our team and putting things in people’s minds that really don’t need to be there.”
While we would certainly like to think Saturday is not stereotyping all sports bloggers as 40-somethings who still live with their parents, he’s right. Based on the context of what he said, he wasn’t “calling out” Calldwell but rather making it clear that everyone is responsible when you get smoked like that. The post was sensationalism at it’s finest, and its understandable that a veteran player on a 0-7 squad was in no mood to hear it.
Chest bump to Sports by Brooks Live for the story.
