Quarterback Peyton Manning was back at Square One on Thursday in the eyes of irate Indianapolis Colts' fans who said he couldn't win The Big One just one year after winning The Big One.
"Same old shit," Colts' fan Ryle Linkletter said. "Nothing changes around here."
Linkletter, 52, said he was "merely in shock" for a couple of days after Sunday's 28-24 loss to the San Diego Chargers, but went around screaming uncontrollably on Wednesday as the full thrust of defeat hit home once it sunk in that ESPN's NFL Live was done blowing Manning kisses and back to canonizing New England QB Tom Brady. Linkletter's poor arthritic mother got him to lie down and raise his feet, applied cold compresses to his forehead and called his boss to say he'd probably miss two or three more days of work.
Linkletter later stashed all his Colts' gear and memorabilia in a box and gave it a Viking funeral on the Tippecanoe River near his home in Lawton, a northern Indiana hamlet that reveled in the Colts' Super Bowl victory for the last 11 months, but returned this week to being the cheerless dump it's always been.
"My identity was tied up in that Super Bowl," Linkletter said. "I finally felt good about myself. For once, I didn't mind being 5-foot-6 and 325 pounds. When people called me that balding, tobacco-stained, fatso hump of a loser, I didn't care because I was a Super Bowl champ.
"Now, all that's down the toilet thanks to Peyton Manning and that stupid no-huddle offense."
Lester Millican of Anderson, Ind., called Manning "a choker."
"He teased us with another season of 4,000 yards passing and all those exciting wins, but when it came time to deliver a second title, he couldn't," Millican said. "It was just one Super Bowl and done.
"And calling plays at the line before the clock runs out, what's up with that? It smacks of indecisiveness and desperation."
Sullivan, Ind., fan Bridgette McCarty said she wouldn't screw Peyton Manning now if he paid her a million dollars, but would "give it up in a second" to his brother Eli Manning of the New York Giants. The Giants will play Green Bay for the NFC championship this weekend.
"Winning is my aphrodisiac," said McCarty, a 38-year-old re-sale shop clerk. "Hell, I'd let the Giants' bus driver have me. Uh, well, if he'd have me, I mean. I don't know that I'd be so lucky. He's probably got his choice of girls this week."
Seymour's Charles Yurell, 26, said Peyton Manning let the Super Bowl victory go to his head and concentrated too much on endorsements and his appearance on Saturday Night Live, where he "acted like a nincompoop" and "brought shame" to Indiana. In one SNL skit, Manning danced like a sissy, acted like a milquetoast husband in another, and in a third, suffered the greatest indignity of all, losing an NCAA basketball tournament bracket-picking contest to a girl.
"Where does he get off making fun like that?" Yurell said. "He has no respect for Hoosier values. After winning the Super Bowl, he should've reported to camp the next morning, two months ahead of time, and started watching film on opponents.
"After seeing how Peyton's mismanaged fame and fortune, I'd rather have Rex Grossman as my quarterback. At least Rex won't embarrass you on national TV, if you don't count last Super Bowl and his history of fumbled snaps, interceptions, sacks, assorted bone-head plays and a penchant for breaking like a ceramic doll, that is. I sure hope we can sign him before the Bears snap him up again."
Indianapolis city officials said they will announce a "Hang Peyton in Effigy Day" soon, but in the meantime, if anyone felt like throwing garbage at Manning or any other Colts' player, he or she wouldn't be arrested or otherwise charged.
"The sooner they leave town, the better," an Indianapolis mayoral aide said.
