Manning Won’t Bend to Fans’ Will

It was a Hollywood ending with a humble twist.

Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning, only four yards away from tying Dan Marino’s 20-year-old record for passing touchdowns, opted to run out the clock Sunday rather than hang another meaningless six points on the Baltimore Ravens. But as the final 59 seconds ticked away in the 20-10 Colt victory, thousands of fans at the RCA Dome showed how they felt about the decision.

“There at the end, I can’t get over the crowd booing like that,” said Manning, who has 47 touchdown passes this season. “I hope those were Baltimore fans. Because that’s just the way you’re supposed to do it.”

If not for a quirky play, Manning wouldn’t have been on the field at the end of the game. With about a minute left and the Ravens deep in Indianapolis territory, a Kyle Boller pass was intercepted by linebacker Cato June and run back 71 yards. Apparently by accident, June stepped out of bounds at the Baltimore four, and the crowd -- realizing that miscue gave Manning another opportunity to tie the record -- cheered wildly.

But after a brief conversation with Coach Tony Dungy, Manning trotted onto the field and twice took a knee, essentially proving what he has said for weeks -- that claiming the passing record is way down on his to-do list.

“Easy one to make,” Dungy said of the decision at the end. “There’s [59] seconds left, they’ve got two timeouts, we’ve got the ball on the four and the game’s ours. So we’re going to take a knee and let it end unless they call timeout. If they used their timeouts to try to get the ball back, then we would have tried to score. Might have been a pass, might have been a run.”

Further hammering home the point that the record is only a number, Manning had a chance to throw his 48th at the end of the third quarter when the Colts had second and goal at the three. Instead, he checked to a draw, letting Edgerrin James take the handoff and run in almost untouched.

“It was a no-brainer look,” Manning said. “That’s the way it’s going to be. That’s the way I’m always going to play it if they get down there and want to take away the pass. If they want to take away the run, that’s a different story.”

Earlier in the quarter, though, Manning threw when Baltimore was expecting a run. On third and one at the Raven 29, he faked a handoff and fired a touchdown pass to Marvin Harrison.

“It was cover-zero with nobody in the middle of the field,” Manning said. “I got Marvin to the middle on a post, and that was a big play.”

The Colts got their victory and the Raven defense escaped with its pride. Baltimore ended Manning’s NFL-record streak of 13 consecutive games with two or more touchdown passes. He came into the game with 23 touchdown passes in his previous six home games. Sunday, he had one on 10-for-19 passing.

“Basically everybody wanted him to get the record, they’d been showing it on TV all week, talking about ‘Peyton Manning this, Peyton Manning that,’ ” said Raven cornerback Gary Baxter, part of a defense that limited the Colts to 316 yards, 106 shy of their league-leading average. “It was a little disappointing to the fans. ... We’re a great defense, we’re a good team, and no one ever said anything about us.”

The Ravens (8-6) are now tied with Buffalo, Jacksonville and Denver for the final wild-card spot in the AFC race.

Boller completed 19 of 40 passes for 210 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions.

“You can’t turn the ball over, and we turned it over in some unique ways,” Coach Brian Billick said, referring, for instance, to a low field-goal attempt that bounced off the back of a Raven and was recovered by the Colts. “You’ve got to play the complete game. It’s not, put them on the short field. It’s not, give them the big play. It’s maintain possession of the ball.”

Indianapolis (11-3) is the No. 4 seed in the AFC behind Pittsburgh, New England and San Diego. With his 249 yards passing, Manning surpassed the 4,000-yard mark for the sixth consecutive season, extending his NFL record.

The Colts play host to San Diego on Sunday, giving them a chance to move up in the seedings and providing Manning with another crack at Marino’s mark.

“We play at home next week too,” Manning said. “Hopefully [the fans] will be here again.”

Still, he was miffed by the booing -- something that should be foreign to a team that has won seven in a row.

“It’s one thing if we were out of the playoff hunt, we had a losing season going on and you were just playing for that,” he said. “But we’re still holding out hope we can get a higher seed.”

And, dull as that might be, it trumps a Hollywood ending.