At the end of August when the Indianapolis Colts signed veteran QB Kerry Collins, no one really understood the magnitude this roster move would have. The only people who even remotely thought that Peyton Manning would miss the first start of his professional career were Houston Texans’ fans, and even that was mostly wishful thankful.

But as the opening weekend of the season got closer, it became evident that Manning would in fact miss his first start in 13 years of professional football. This put an amazing and unreasonable strain on Kerry Collins, as he was given the nearly impossible task of learning the Colts offense in all of 13 days.

This unreasonable strain wasn’t just felt by Kerry Collins, but also the Colts’ front office staff, the Colts’ fans, and the entire National Football League, because they have essentially lost the “Iron Man” of the league to an unexpected neck injury.

This injury was such a surprise to the Colts organization that they had to call upon Collins out of pure desperation. They saw what Curtis Painter could do in the preseason, and they were likely not pleased with his performance, so they had to make a move to show their fans that they were still trying to compete this upcoming season.

Peyton’s neck injury has also been extremely impactful on the NFL because he is still the talk of the league four weeks into the season. Everyone sees how abysmal the Colts have been without Peyton (they’re 0-3, if you didn’t know), and now everyone sees how significant Manning was to not just the Colts offense, but also the entire Colts team. That one man made his entire team that much better.

The NFL misses Manning just as much, if not even more, than the Colts organization because he was the epitome of consistency. The man made 208 consecutive starts, 227 if you include his 19 playoff career starts. Manning was a guarantee to be out there every single Sunday.

This injury is one that threw all involved parties for a huge loop. And it goes to show that you shouldn’t ever let your team depend so heavily upon one man, like the Colts did with Manning.

Peyton would never say that all this pressure to come back is unbearable for him because he’s a professional, but it has to be on his mind all of the time. With the Colts struggling like they are now, Peyton may want to come back even sooner than he really should, and than that could cause even bigger problems for the Colts.

The Colts are aware that Peyton is on the downward end of his career, and they should really start planning for the future so a situation like this never occurs again. Build a team, not just let one man run the entire organization. That is the lesson to be learned here. Hopefully the Colts know and understand that.