Manning May Be Caught in a Vicious Family Circle

The Manning family album, through November 2003, features three quarterbacks beloved in the American south, dozens of trophies, hundreds of touchdown passes, thousands of yards passing and no victories in the NFL playoffs.

Dad Archie has his reasons -- mainly, being forced to spend most of his professional career with the New Orleans Saints. Archie never played on a team good enough to qualify for the playoffs.

Young son Eli has an alibi too. He’s still in college.

But what about Peyton, the best quarterback to wear a Colt uniform since Johnny Unitas, a three-time Pro Bowl selection in his first five seasons, surrounded by some of the league’s most explosive offensive talent ... and winless in three postseason appearances?

Sunday’s 38-34 loss to the visiting New England Patriots provided a clue.

First, there’s the defense. Purportedly upgraded since Tony Dungy replaced Jim Mora after the 2001 season, the Colt defense under Dungy still encounters horrific flashbacks in big games. In last season’s wild-card round, the Colts were strafed by Chad Pennington and the New York Jets, 41-0. And Sunday’s touted “playoff preview” against New England was little more than a playoff review -- with Manning down again, by a lot, 31-10, in the third quarter.

Then, there’s the red-zone offense. Given eight plays inside the Patriot 12-yard line in the last four minutes, the Colts netted eight yards -- including one yard in four tries near the New England goal line in the last 40 seconds.

After Manning rallied the Colts to a 31-31 tie with 8 1/2 minutes left, the Indianapolis defense yielded yet another touchdown, then recovered a New England fumble at the Patriot 11.

Manning, however, could get the Colts no closer, with three plays netting zero yards and Indianapolis forced to settle for a field goal.

Given another chance in the final minute, Manning drove the Colts downfield again. A seven-yard run by Edgerrin James with 40 seconds left gave Indianapolis a first-and-goal situation at the New England two.

Two yards. Forty seconds. The Colts would have four cracks at the winning touchdown. Under similar circumstances a week ago in Buffalo, Indianapolis had James run up the middle four times. On fourth and inches, James managed to squirm across the goal line, giving the Colts the points they needed for a 17-14 triumph.

Some might say the Colts beat the Bills in spite of their goal-line play-calling.

Not Colt offensive coordinator Tom Moore. Two yards in four plays with James between the tackles? Moore considered that a mandate for more of the same, a track record to stake a season on.

Actually, by comparison, the Colts went wild against the Patriots. Instead of four plunges by James into the middle of the line, Indianapolis tried three plunges by James into the middle of the line and a pass.

James gained a yard on first down and nothing on second down. This was not entirely surprising, considering the middle of the line is where the Patriots station the NFL’s answer to Jabba the Hutt, man-mountain defensive tackle Ted Washington, who is conservatively listed at 6 feet 5 and 365 pounds.

Mt. Washington wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was James. So with two downs and 18 seconds left, the Colts called timeout, sized up all of their options, which included possible passes to Marvin Harrison, or Reggie Wayne, or Marcus Pollard, and sent Manning back onto the field to try this:

A high lob into the left corner of the end zone for a rookie wide receiver named Aaron Moorehead.

The idea was to isolate Moorehead, who stands 6-3, against New England’s 5-8 cornerback Tyrone Poole. But Poole bottled up Moorehead at the line of scrimmage and by the time Moorehead could free himself, Manning’s short fade was fading out of the end zone.

One down left. The Colts went back to their old favorite, James up the middle.

Patriot linebacker Willie McGinest shed a blocker and tackled James in the backfield. No gain, ball to New England on downs, game to New England seconds later.

Television replays showed that as soon as Manning turned to hand the ball to James, the mass of the Patriot defense converged between the hash marks, leaving the left side of the field gaping and the end zone vulnerable to a bootleg by Manning. Maybe Dungy and Moore and Manning will notice when they get together to break down the tape.

This matchup of AFC division leaders nudged the Colts into former division-leader status. The 10-2 Patriots increased their league-leading winning streak to eight games while maintaining their two-game lead in the AFC East over Miami. The Colts, meanwhile, dropped to 9-3, a half-game behind 9-2 Tennessee in the AFC South. The Titans play the New York Jets tonight, then play host to the Colts next Sunday.

Two games in the NFC matched the conference’s four division leaders: Philadelphia at Carolina and Minnesota at St. Louis. If that’s the NFC’s eventual final four, book the conference title game today -- Eagles and Rams, with the edge going to whichever team emerges from December with home-field advantage.

The Eagles won at Carolina, 25-16, and the Rams rolled at home, 48-17. Both teams are 9-3. The Eagles have won seven in a row, the Rams eight of their last nine.

Conversely, the Panthers have lost their last two to fall to 8-4 and the Vikings are 1-5 in their last six, slipping from 6-0 to 7-5.

In the NFC, it was Separation Sunday.

And on the first day of December, after three months of false starts and false hopes, the league is starting to sort itself. Philadelphia and St. Louis look to be the class of the NFC, as was the suspicion before the season began. In the AFC, Tennessee, New England and Kansas City have fulfilled the preseason optimism.

A few straggling surprises remain. The Cincinnati Bengals, 24-20 winners at Pittsburgh, still share the AFC North lead with Baltimore, which routed San Francisco, 44-6, to move to 7-5. The Chicago Bears, getting 284 yards passing and a pair of scoring passes from Kordell Stewart, beat Arizona, 28-3, to improve to 5-7 -- which might not sound like much, except that in the NFC North, it moves the Bears to within two games of first place.

Other than that, and maybe the continued struggles of the Oakland Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the league has become almost

Especially when Indianapolis has the ball inside the opponent’s five-yard line.