Don’t pass over Manning

No flashy passing numbers.

No balanced offensive attack.

No AFC South title.

Does Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning deserve to be the NFL’s most valuable player this season?

No question.

Sure, there are plenty of qualified candidates -- among them quarterbacks Drew Brees, Chad Pennington and Kurt Warner; running back Adrian Peterson; and linebackers DeMarcus Ware and James Harrison -- but it’s Manning who should get the award, which will be announced Friday by the Associated Press.

Manning, who shared the award with Tennessee’s Steve McNair in 2003 and won it outright in 2004, could soon join Brett Favre as the only three-time league MVP of the modern era.

It isn’t just the role Manning has played in the Colts’ eight-game winning streak, or that he has brought the team from behind time and again this season, although those things are convincing on their own. It’s also that Manning has done what he has been able to do without the help of a strong running game.

Heading into the final Sunday of the regular season, Indianapolis has the league’s 31st-ranked ground game, and its two top running backs, Joseph Addai and Dominic Rhodes, have one 100-yard game between them.

Over the course of the current winning streak -- double the next-longest streak of four wins by Miami -- Manning has completed 71.4% of his passes for 2,153 yards with 16 touchdowns and three interceptions. He probably won’t play much Sunday when the Colts, who already wrapped up the AFC’s first of two wild-card bids, finish the season at home against Tennessee.

Six times this season the Colts have trailed in the fourth quarter before coming back to win. Four of those comebacks took place during the current streak.

Making that more impressive is that those defenses were bracing for Manning to pass, knowing Indianapolis couldn’t run.

In the past, the Colts have thrived on setting up their passing game with the run. They would attack the edges with a stretch play -- basically a sprint-out by Manning and the tailback -- which would make play-action fakes that much more convincing.

“It’s been a great running play for the Colts over the years because you’ve usually got to get some safety help to stop it,” the quarterback’s father, Archie Manning, said in a phone interview. “If you can get the safeties reacting, you can get it downfield. And I mean way downfield.”

But this season, for a number of reasons, the running game has been almost nonexistent. On average, the Colts have controlled the ball four minutes less than their opponents, further reducing Manning’s margin for error. More than other seasons, he has had to make the most of each possession.

“When you talk about who’s made the biggest difference on their football teams, if you took Peyton Manning off the Colts, honestly I’m not sure if they win four games,” NBC’s Cris Collinsworth said this month.

The MVP is selected by a 50-member panel of sportswriters and broadcasters, and votes are due Monday. The Indianapolis Star recently polled voters and got 19 responses; 13 of those voters said they had either settled on Manning or had him on their short list. Clearly, though, no one is a slam dunk in this race.

Manning, whose offensive line and backfield have been continually shuffled because of injuries, has overcome his own health issues this season. He underwent two knee surgeries during the summer to remove an infected bursa sac and then dealt with a subsequent infection.

“I don’t even know if Peyton’s teammates knew what he had to go through to play in that opening game,” the elder Manning said. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, because I’m his dad, but there aren’t a lot of quarterbacks who could have gotten themselves ready to play that game.”

The Colts lost that opener to Chicago, and two weeks later lost at home to Jacksonville, meaning they couldn’t christen their new Lucas Oil Stadium with a victory until beating Baltimore there in Week 6.

The current winning streak started three weeks later with a home victory over New England, and was definitely on the ropes in narrow victories at San Diego and Cleveland.

As for Manning, his most recent game was his best. He put on a near-flawless passing clinic at Jacksonville, completing 29 of 34 for 364 yards and three touchdowns in a victory that secured a playoff berth

Typically, the Colts came from behind, with Manning directing them back from deficits of 14-0 and 24-14.

“All in all, with everything that was riding on it . . . it was a great performance,” Colts Coach Tony Dungy said. “It was an MVP performance for sure.”

And it could have sealed the deal for yet another Manning comeback: one that brings him back to the award podium.

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sam.farmer@latimes.com