Week 11: Kansas City at Indianapolis

What will football announcers do when Brett Favre retires? Some answers are obvious: Al Michaels will laugh at his own jokes; Paul McGuire will sob into a coffee mug filled with inexpensive scotch while attempting to announce a college game; Tony Siragusa will consume an entire six-foot hero, but just out of habit. For the most part, though, the answer is already clear: the next Great Iconic Quarterback Who Will Lead Us All is Peyton Manning. We have no problem with that – Manning’s really good, his team is fun to watch, we have him in two fantasy leagues and also have on good authority from a friend who blocked for him in high school that he’s an okay guy – but man, you should’ve heard NBC’s announcers explaining away his brutal six-interception performance against San Diego in Week 10.

Not since the last time Favre underhanded a pass to an opposing linebacker because he just loves the game so much and is having such a great time and also he has a very strong jaw have we heard such furious wheel-spinning. The words “the most courageous six-interception game I’ve ever seen” probably weren’t uttered, but they might as well have. Yes, Manning was throwing to a much-depleted receiving corps – both Aaron Moorehead and his father Emery had catches in the game – but boy, was he terrible. In Week 11, though, he’ll get a chance to redeem himself against a Chiefs team that, at long last, is living down to our preseason expectations.

It should be noted that the Chiefs defense is pretty good. They’ve got some excellent young pass rushers, two great tacklers in linebackers Donnie Edwards and Derrick Johnson, and a solid enough secondary. They’re around the NFL average in every defensive category, but probably will still have a very difficult time stopping even a less-than-full-strength Colts offense. That depends somewhat on how less-than-full-strength said offense is – right now the Colts injury report still lists WR Marvin Harrison as questionable and is uncomfortably rife with the word “concussion” – but Indy’s third-ranked offense should score their points. Really, the expectations to which we expected Kansas City to live down were on offense.

Let’s go back two-plus months to Week 1; the weather’s about the same as it is now – thanks for driving your Escalade those eight long blocks to the California Pizza Kitchen! – and we’re new to this NFL preview game. Not so new that we don’t know an easy object of sport when we see it, though. The Chiefs had just settled the least interesting quarterback controversy since Jeff George decided to get curly fries at an Edina, MN Jack-In-The Box by choosing Damon Huard to start over Brodie Croyle. Their star running back showed up at camp late, out of shape, and in a bad mood. We’ve done that at every job we’ve ever held, but this was different: without Larry Johnson to carry the ball 70 to 90 times a game, the Chiefs were in a tight spot. So we made fun of them. We didn’t know what else to do.

But the Chiefs, somehow, have gone 4-5 simply by beating teams that are even worse than they. Their defense is solid, and Johnson eventually rounded into shape (as opposed to his original rounded shape). L.J. is out for this week with a foot injury, though, and Huard, too, is done: he has ceded the starting gig to Brodie Croyle, an uninspiring, floppy-haired gunslinger who is nevertheless Quarterback of the Future by dint of being the youngest quarterback on the team. (Well, the youngest not named Tyler Thigpen)

In Week 11, against an active and effective Colts defense, Kansas City’s running back of the past – Priest Holmes, out of retirement if not quite into the form that made him the best back in Chiefs history – will share the backfield with a quarterback whose work didn’t blow us away back when he was on MTV’s Two-A-Days last season. If we were a Chiefs fan – and we’re not, although we love Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue – we might watch this one through our fingers. While squinting. Not because it’ll be so lopsided – K.C.’s defense is too good for that, and Indy’s offense too gimpy – but because it’s the only way Croyle is going to look like Len Dawson. Or Steve Bono, for that matter. As for Priest Holmes looking like Priest Holmes: you might want to close your eyes all the way if you want to make that one work.

Colts by 7