It looks like Peyton Manning will be out for a good long time. Reports are that he got cervical fusion surgery today.
My experience with cervical fusion surgery is from automobile liability defense cases and, in my line of work, a Plaintiff who required or who might require cervical fusion surgery is bad news. It ups the payout considerably. What it tells me about Peyton is that the prospect of him playing this year are probably dim. I’m no doctor though, so hopefully, there is a “good” kind of fusion surgery and he’s getting one of those. But, based on my present level of knowledge, I’m not buying the 2-3 month recovery. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s out for the season.
We’ve been spoiled a long time. The last Colts game where Peyton didn’t start was December 21, 1997. I did a quick search for that day in history – nothing much jumped out, but I found this guy telling us that the Web may have some innovative potential in the future, but Usenet a truly valuable resource. You could search it with Alta Vista. (Google had been live for about three months at that point.)
Part of the collective freak out among Colts fans has to do with how awful our offense has looked any time Peyton was out. There are reasons to hope that things won’t be quite that bad; but, time will tell.
No, awful is the post- Bert Jones, pre-Jim Harbaugh Colts, 1979-1994 (with a few exceptions because of Dickerson). The Colts now have much more talent and a winning tradition. And the organization is much better run under the younger Irsay. This is bad, but it won’t all go away with Manning. Here’s predicting the Colts will shore up other aspects of their game while he is out and Peyton will come back older, wiser, and gimpier, for the final act.
Ouch! Now that was an ass-whooping!