Sunday, January 5, 2014

Experts at seeing opportunity

The Colts win over Kansas City in yesterday's wild card playoff game at Lucas Oil Stadium demonstrated once again how football is a metaphor for life.  You don't look to every football game you view for inspiration, but sometimes a contest really does renew your sense of human possibility.

Sometimes life presents us with daunting scenarios, such as a 28-point deficit at halftime in an NFL playoff game.  There's only one thing to do at that point: get real sharp.

Earlier this season, T.Y. Hilton had to step up to the task of filling Reggie Wayne's shoes.  He has done so, particularly yesterday, when he logged 13 catches, 224 yards, and two touchdowns.

But for sheer mastery in the art of seizing the moment, Andrew Luck's recovered fumble and subsequent slide into the end zone to bring the Colts within three caused central Indiana to quake from the unison roar of amazement and elation.  (Video at link.)

An NFL team is a lot of things.  Its top management making numbers-based business decisions.  It's the recruitment function.  It's the head coach.  It's the coordination of offense, defense and special teams. It's the camaraderie among players who have woodshedded and gigged together from July's swelter through January's chill.

And it's a sense of duty to legacy. The old RCA Dome will be forever known as the House That Peyton Built, but the continuity, in terms of standards of excellent football, has been established in the big bowl on West Street.  That's how it's done in the Circle City.

No comments:

Post a Comment