I have watched with great surprise and consternation over the past few weeks as criticism – almost all of it unjust and unnecessary – has been heaped upon one of the greatest players in the history of the toughest position in sports.

If you follow me on Twitter, you finally saw it spill out last night in a series of tweets supporting the great Peyton Manning and castigating those of you with the foolish audacity to criticize him because he’s had a rough three game stretch.

The catalyst for my Twitter rant was reading this article about the idiotic comments that Colts radio voice Bob Lamey made about Manning. The comments were made off-air, but were picked up by a hot microphone. Here is the jist, as summarized by Florio at Pro Football Talk:

Our friends at StampedeBlue.com explain the comments of Bob Lamey, who reportedly said that NFL defenses had “figured Manning out,” that he should be benched for Curtis Painter, and that the Colts should draft Manning’s replacement in 2011.

When I saw this, my first instinct was to let out a giant guffaw and just move on. I mean, these comments are so ludicrous and so unbelievably insane that I was wondering for a minute if PFT had been taken over by writers for The Onion. Peyton Manning should be benched? For Curtis f’ing Painter? Seriously?

Here’s the thing: comments like this would be a little bit easier to accept if it was just from a frustrated rogue fan who’d knocked back a few too many Keystone Lights while watching Peyton toss away the Colts to chances to win last Sunday. That I could deal with. As sports fans we all get caught up in the heat of the moment and sometimes say things we don’t mean. But these comments by Lamey were not that. They were a premeditated manifestation of ideas he’s clearly ruminated about for a while now, at least the last three weeks. Pondering is one thing, but actually considering them enough to speak them out loud in any public setting is another.

And, as I tweeted last night, sadly Lamey is not a rogue voice. He actually speaks for a lot of fair-weather, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately Colts fans, which is perhaps the most disgusting and pathetic aspect of this entire story.

[Read more...]