Peyton Manning and Indianapolis receivers are masters of precision
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They repeat routes so many times it appears effortless come game time. The quarterback finished the regular season with 4,002 yards passing, an NFL-record ninth season he has thrown for 4,000-plus yards.
Peyton Manning's pregame ritual with his Indianapolis Colts receivers has something in common with the New Year's Eve festivities in Times Square.
In both cases, the ball drops once a year.
That's the way it seems with Manning & Co., at least, a group so practiced and precise that a whole warmup can take place without the football touching the turf.
"They practice so much that it becomes almost automatic when he throws them a pass," said Jim Mora, who coached the Colts for Manning's first four seasons in the NFL. "All off-season he's throwing to them up there in Indianapolis. During the season, when the defense is doing their thing, he'll take them to another field and he'll throw routes to these guys. It's the repetition that takes place with Peyton and his receivers that makes him so effective on game day. It's route after route after route -- more than any quarterback-receiver combination I've ever been involved with.
"I'd bet that you could actually blindfold Peyton and he'd be able to make those throws. That's how well he knows where those guys are going to be."
Passing precision is the calling card of Manning, who today could be named the league's most valuable player for the third time (Only Brett Favre has won the award three times). Manning finished with 4,002 yards passing, the NFL-record ninth time he has thrown for more than 4,000 yards in a season.
Making that feat more impressive this season is the Colts' inability to run the football, ranked 31st at 79.6 yards per game.
"Our goal every game all season long has been to try to establish the run," he said. "You always kind of feel like, 'Today might be the day that things are going to pop.' If you look at us statistically, we've always tried to be balanced. . . . That's certainly the plan going in."
There's no reason to think that the script has flipped because the calendar has. The Colts are going to lean heavily on their passing game against the San Diego Chargers on Saturday, meaning Manning and his receivers will be working overtime. And, especially in the eyes of Peyton purists, that can be a thing of beauty -- even before kickoff.
"If you watch a Colts pregame, you understand why they're good," said UCLA Coach Rick Neuheisel, who found himself mesmerized by Manning's warmup routine when Neuheisel was a Baltimore Ravens assistant coach. "They're machine-like. In the old days, when it was just Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne [at receiver] they'd just go right down the field and hit every throw like it was choreographed, like watching the 'Nutcracker Suite.' The ball never hits the ground.
