King Kaufman's Sports Daily

When is a big game not the Big One? When you win it. Ask Peyton Manning. Plus: NHL explores new frontiers in screwing up.

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Jan. 25, 2007 | When is a big game not a big game? When you win it, apparently. As long as it's not the Super Bowl.

As you may have noticed during one of the 10,000 times CBS flashed this graphic during the past three playoff weeks, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning came into this season with a 3-6 lifetime playoff record. That record is now 6-6.

At the beginning of his career the Colts seemed like playoff visitors, but since about 2003, when the Colts went 12-4 and lost to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, the main thing you've needed to know about Manning is that he Can't Win the Big One.

Now, one of the big stories of Super Bowl Hype Week I is that Manning finally has a chance to prove he Can Win the Big One.

Wait a second. Wasn't this year's AFC Championship Game a Big One? Weren't those other two playoff wins, over the Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens, Big Ones? If the Colts had lost any of those three games, what would all the Mikes and all the other Mikes be saying all these mornings?

Peyton Manning can't win the Big One.

If Manning is just now getting a chance, for the first time, to prove that he can win the Big One, how have we all figured out in the past few years that he can't win the Big One?

If non-Super Bowl playoff games aren't Big Ones, Manning's record in Big Ones is 0-0. As the lottery people like to say, you can't win if you don't play.

Sure, there has been some monkey-off-his-back talk, but tune in to sports talk radio or sniff around Google News. There's no question that in the popular imagination, Super Bowl 41 will be a referendum on Manning's ability to win the Big One.

Never mind that quarterbacks rarely win games single-handedly, that Manning would now be 3-7 or 4-7 if the Colts defense hadn't played so well against the Chiefs and Ravens while Manning was less than stellar, 5-7 if the Colts D hadn't come up with the stop that led to the game-winning drive against the Patriots Sunday, or the interception that sealed the game.

Never mind that, we're talking about Peyton Manning's inability to win the ever-shifting Big One. Because this is it. The Super Bowl. The Big One. Really. If you lose a playoff game, you can't win the Big One. If you win a playoff game, you get a chance to prove you can win the Big One.

I think. I can't be the only one who figures somebody somewhere is going to react to a Colts win in the Super Bowl by saying, "Oh yeah? Well let's see Manning win the Rose Bowl!"

Next page: The NHL marches on in its ceaseless search for new ways to screw up