For weeks I’ve been wrestling with a dilemma that is becoming more and more clear by the week. It’s a sick feeling in my stomach that I ignore Monday through Saturday, but it comes back every Sunday afternoon.  It’s far more emotional to me than it should be. It’s the situation surrounding Peyton Manning and his future with the Indianapolis Colts.

Now, from Week One I knew Manning wouldn’t be playing this season.  In fact, at the time, it didn’t really bug me.  I accepted the fact that my beloved Colts wouldn’t go to the playoffs like I had grown so accustomed to seeing. Fast-forward three and a half months. The Colts sit at 0-13 and are without question one of the worst teams in the history of the National Football League.  Actually, this doesn’t even bug me. Sure, it’s embarrassing, but I realize that I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy 10 years of winning, while other fan bases have sat through 11-year playoff droughts.

However, what I can’t seem to let go is the fact that the chances of ever seeing Manning in a Colts jersey again are extremely unlikely. I simply cannot imagine the greatest quarterback of his generation/all-time (both of those proclamations are arguments for a different article) in a jersey that isn’t blue and white.

For those unfamiliar with the City of Indianapolis, it is easy to say that the Manning era is over and it is time to make room for Stanford’s Andrew Luck. They may very well be right.  Yet, to those people, I say please look at it from the prospective of a 15-22 year old born and raised in the 317.  Manning arrived in our prime years of football watching and playing. He’s all we’ve ever known. He came along when we thought football players were super human.  We don’t know what it’s like without him, well, until now. Emotionally, there is a huge attachment. He is the Indianapolis Colts. Do the Indianapolis Colts even exist without him? Would owner Jim Irsay have moved them again like his father did in Baltimore? Are they the Los Angeles Colts?  Certainly there is no Lucas Oil Stadium sitting at 500 South Capitol Avenue in downtown Indianapolis, “The House That Peyton Built”.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so emotional about something as small as sports are in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure Irsay, Bill Polian, the vice chairman and his son Chris Polian, the general manager (if they still have their jobs) won’t let emotion get in the way when it comes to a decision on Manning’s future. I just hope that decision is what is best for the franchise and that Peyton Manning is just as happy as he has made Colts fans over the last 13 years.