Poking the Bear

I'm pretty sure this is at least the third time Acee has written this article. And I'm certain he thinks Peyton Manning reads it and it "gets inside his head." And while I can't deny Peyton has dropped some serious stinkers against the Chargers over the years, I can't help but worry that one of these days Peyton-one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time-is gonna just go all "You know what? Screw you, San Diego Sports Journalist whose name I can't remember! Take that!" and put up 50 on our poor Chargers. Of course, that's assuming Peyton bothers to read Acee's scathing criticism. I imagine some agent or PR guy says, "Hey Peyton, did you here Kevin Acee says the Chargers have got your number?" and Peyton goes, "What? Who? Eff that guy."

Look, I have no problem with shouting "Scoreboard! Scoreboard! Scoreboard!" at Peyton Manning all day, but let's not pretend that the universe has proven unequivically that Peyton Manning just can't beat the Chargers and should probably just call in sick on those days. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if at least part of the reason Peypey made the awful decision to join the Broncos in the first place was so that he could have two chances a year to tweak the lopsidedness of that head-to-head record.

Really, I just hate anytime anyone says that because we did this before we'll clearly do it again. This isn't the same team. I doubt Cason's going to get out there and pick off Manning 15 times or whatever. Sproles isn't around to run back a couple of kicks. There is no reason to believe that those past performances have anything to do with this one. Many of our old heroes are gone, and Denver actually packs a defense when they come to town. That's something those Colts teams rarely did. Saying those games determine the outcome of this game is like Raiders fans clamoring about rings they won decades ago. Means nothing to me. And watch, Acee will write nearly the exact same article about the Ravens when they come to town later in the year. We are impervious to the Ravens Ravenousity.

But perhaps my favorite part of the article is where AJ actually tries not to be a complete dick about Peyton Manning, but Acee assures us all that he knows-because him and AJ share a special secret inner bond-that AJ was, in fact, being a total dick. Okay, that part I believe.

Every time I read an article like this-and that's a lot, because Acee's articles are almost always recycled versions of articles he's written previously that were probably recycled versions of articles Canepa wrote at one time-it makes me kind of want us to lose. And that sucks, because I've nearly convinced myself that I want us to win!

That being said, I totally expect us to handle Manning on Monday. That guy just can't figure us out.