Caldwell, Colts pay price for taking ball out of Manning's hands

MIAMI -- Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gunna beat themselves? Uh, that would be the Indianapolis Colts, who will take much of the blame for losing Super Bowl XLIV.

Look, first things first: The New Orleans Saints deserve the Lombardi Trophy. They won it fair and square -- outplaying, outhustling, outsmarting and outscoring the Colts.

But Indianapolis aided and abetted the enemy, making irregular mistakes that contributed to a 31-17 loss -- and you can start with the head coach.

For five months, Jim Caldwell behaved like a veteran -- patient, poised and making all the right calls. He won his first 14 games and lost the last two only after he pulled his starters.

But in the game he absolutely, positively had to win, he atypically got timid -- failing to take chances and failing to trust his quarterback -- and it cost him and his ballclub.

Yeah, I know, Pierre Garcon dropped a second-quarter pass that changed the game’s momentum. There was a gutsy on-side kick that was flubbed by the Colts’ Hank Baskett, too. Reggie Wayne dropped a potential touchdown pass at the end that, if made, would have allowed the Colts to try an onside kick. And the Indianapolis defense sprung more holes than the New Jersey Turnpike.

Those things can happen, though they usually don’t happen to Indianapolis. What I don’t get is a head coach taking the ball out of his quarterback’s hands -- correction, out of Peyton Manning's hands -- at critical moments, and while Caldwell may not agree, that’s precisely what he did to help sink the ship.

The first gaffe occurred late in the first half, or immediately after the Colts stuffed New Orleans at the Indy 1 with just under two minutes to play and Indianapolis holding a 10-3 lead. Yeah, OK, so the Colts had 99 yards to go, and New Orleans had all of its timeouts. But your quarterback is Peyton Manning, for crying out loud. You trust him to make all the right plays, and all the Colts needed there was a 10-yard completion.

But Caldwell didn't take that chance. Instead, he played not to make a mistake. So the Colts ran three times, punted the ball away and gave the Saints a last-second field goal.

What makes his move all the more puzzling is that, prior to that series, the Colts had the ball all of three snaps in the second quarter. Manning hadn’t been on the field, one reason the Colts were stuck in neutral. But once he returned, he was handcuffed -- and I don’t get it.

Now, I know what you're thinking: When you're dug in that deep you don't want to make a mistake, and I agree. But you have a quarterback some people wanted to anoint the best ever. So if you believe in him -- which Caldwell and virtually everyone in Kingdom Come does -- let him throw the ball. He likes to do it. He's good at it. And he was hot. So give him the green light.

Only the Colts didn't. And it cost them three points.

But the killer was Caldwell's puzzling decision to have 42-year-old Matt Stover try a 51-yard field goal in the second half -- a kick he was never going to make. I know the guy is accurate. And I know he had a string of 16 consecutive field goals in the playoffs when he was called on. But I also know he has limitations, and it's generally 47-48 yards.

Jim Caldwell makes costly decisions, but none bigger than handcuffing Peyton and the Indy offense. (AP)

OK, so he was nailing 50-yarders in practice. He’s also 13-of-32 on field goals of 50 or more yards and hadn’t hit one since the 2006 season. So even though it was fourth-and-11 at the New Orleans 33, the Colts should have done something, anything but try a Matt Stover field goal.

They should have trusted Manning to make a play.

But they didn’t, and they paid for it. I don’t care that Stover had the distance. All that matters is he didn’t make it. And with the miss, the door was opened for the Saints. New Orleans took over at the Indianapolis 41, then went 59 yards in nine plays for the go-ahead touchdown. Check, please.

"Things weren't going our way, and we just weren't in sync," said Colts safety Melvin Bullitt. "Offensively, I don't know what happened with them, but it seemed like they couldn't stop us on offense. So when we got there on defense we just let them get too many field goals."

He has that right. The Colts were up 10-0, and Manning was shredding the Saints until Garcon dropped a first-down pass early in the second quarter. That started the Colts on their descent, and Caldwell pushed them deeper with his conservative approach. Contrast that to opposing coach Sean Payton's devil-may-care attitude and you have a problem, Indianapolis.

You also have a loss that you deserve. I don't know that the Colts would have won if Caldwell pushed the envelope. But I know they lost when he didn't. "I don't know what was going on," said linebacker Clint Session. "It seemed like we just couldn't find our rhythm. We didn't bring our best effort. We didn't put our best foot forward, and we lost."

Amen.