Colts Need More Super Bowl Titles to Immortalize Great Manning Era

The Montana-Young 49ers, the '70s Steelers, the '70s Dolphins, the '90s Cowboys, the Belichick-and-Brady Patriots: what do they all have in common? They are all-time great NFL teams that racked up many wins in a handful of seasons. You know what else they have in common? None of them have ever put together as impressive a regular season resume as the current Peyton Manning-era Colts.

That's right, after beginning this season 5-0, the Manning-era Colts are now 80-21 since the beginning of 2003. The '70s Steelers went 87-27-1 from 1972-1979. From 1981-1998, the 49ers were always pretty stout, but they never put together a six-plus season run where they played close to .800 ball like the current Colts (they came closest from 1987-1992 when they went 75-20). The '90s Cowboys went 70-20 in their best stretch. From 2001-2007, the Patriots went 86-26. Shula's '70s Dolphins, at 67-16-1, check in as the best competition.

So, these Colts should go down as one of the best teams of all-time, right? Uh, no. Not yet, at least.

You know what else those teams have in common (that the Colts don't have)? Of course you do. It's the same thing the Gibbs-led Redskins, Parcells-led Giants, Big Ben-Polamalu era Steelers, Elway-TD Broncos, Plunkett Raiders and Lombardi's Packers have: More than one Super Bowl ring.

Should the Manning-era Colts not win another Super Bowl here in the next few years, they will be just another team who won a Super Bowl, instead of being considered among the immortal groups in the NFL. They can join the Bears of the 1980's (who went 52-11 for a four-year stretch, but won only one Super Bowl and have been relegated to being a one-year wonder instead of an immortal team), and the Brett Favre-era Packers (who went 160-91 under Favre, including seven seasons with 11 or more wins and visited the playoffs 11 times -- yet won just a single Super Bowl). Sure, it's better to have won the big one instead of failing to win it at all (sorry, Minnesota Vikings teams of the '70s and late '90s and the Jim Kelly-Thurman Thomas Bills teams). Winning the big one is what defines greatness, but winning more than one is how you achieve immortality.

We see potentially great all-time teams fall short of multiple championships and not end up getting the relative recognition they seemingly deserve in other sports, too. Look at the Atlanta Braves in baseball -- they won 13 straight division championships, which is just absurd. They were only able to win the World Series one time, though, and have been greatly overshadowed by the New York Yankees and even the Boston Red Sox in recent memory. What about the Detroit Pistons earlier this decade in the NBA? They went to the conference finals six consecutive years, losing less than 30 games in the final five years of that stretch. They only won one ring.


Instead of being thought of as transcendent teams, the Bears, Packers, Braves and Pistons teams mentioned above are actually thought of as relative failures. Not because they didn't win, but because they only won the big prize once. Whether or not that's fair, that's how it is in the annals of sports history. Look at the talent those teams had and the number of chances they had to add to their ring total. Not being able to do so sticks in the craw of fans. The current Colts are staring down the barrel of joining this group.

And, really, that would be a shame. These Colts are so good during the regular season, we take them for granted. Look around at the remaining unbeaten teams this season. You have the Vikings undefeated after netting Brett Favre. You have the upstart, Josh McDaniels-led, Broncos. You have the Saints, who are garnering press for actually having a good defense now opposite the stellar Drew Brees. The Giants are just killing teams and have been really impressive. And then, you have the Colts. Ho hum, just another 5-0 start -- their fifth in the past six seasons. They have now won 14 straight regular season games. When watching the Colts these past three games -- when they throttled the Cardinals, Seahawks and Titans -- how boring was it? It was just an "oh well, the Colts are blowing someone out again" feeling. You can make excuses about the competition all you want, but when anyone else outscores teams 97-36 in three games, you usually get to hear about how great they are. When it's the Colts, opposing fans scoff and find ways to downplay it -- all simply because it's nothing new.

That's how good they are (again, in the regular season).

It all starts with Manning, who is easily one of the top-10 quarterbacks of all-time. In fact, you could make an argument for the best ever (and his stats will show it before he retires). The only argument you can make against him? The one I'm talking about right now: "he's only won one Super Bowl!" Sure, Marvin Harrison is a Hall of Famer (and Reggie Wayne probably will be before it's all said and done). Dallas Clark has morphed into one of the premier tight ends in the league. Edgerrin James and Joseph Addai are Pro Bowlers. But Manning makes them look better by running the offense the way he does. He also makes guys like Austin Collie, Pierre Garcon, Brandon Stokley, Dominic Rhodes, Marcus Pollard, Anthony Gonzalez and herds of others appear studly at times. As amazing as it sounds, Manning is actually playing the best ball of his illustrious career at present. He's not going to have the gaudy stat-line of 2004, but he's more efficient and polished this time around.

Bill Polian probably deserves more credit, because he is the man who constructed this franchise, and he's pulled all the right strings. He drafted Manning. He's given Manning the weapons to survive and has constantly reloaded the offensive arsenal at the expense of spending more money on defense. He's gathered the book-end pass rushers (Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis) and other important pieces (Bob Sanders, Cato June, Antoine Bethea, Marlin Jackson, etc.) that help keep the defense respectable at worst and very solid at best. He's shuffled in the right offensive lineman (including Pro Bowl center Jeff Saturday) to keep his quarterback upright and healthy. He hired Tony Dungy, who found a way to blend all the talent into a championship team. He helped install the current coaching staff, which is thriving due to the continuity after Dungy's departure.

We could go on and on about all the great things about the Indianapolis Colts for the past decade -- and everything will come back to one negative: post-season failures. The Super Bowl championship is overshadowed by the 3-8 postseason record in all the other playoff seasons under Manning/Polian (including six first-round losses).

By my estimation, the 33-year-old Manning has roughly five years left while fully in his prime. In order for the Manning-era Colts (or even Polian-era Colts, if you prefer) to be truly appreciated, they need to bring home the hardware one more time. If they are really serious about being a transcendent team, they'll do it at least twice -- just for good measure.

After all, that is what a truly immortal team would do.