There has been plenty to blog about in regards to Peyton Manning and his future with the Colts. If any of you checked here yesterday as a lot of the storylines continued to unfold to see what I had to say I apologize for not having anything up. I wanted to give the post on Jeff Saturday top billing on the blog for at least a day. Saturday's kindness might not get much attention anywhere else, so I wanted to show him what little love that I could.

Anyway....

I'm torn here, folks. As a writer/blogger/gossip monger I should be loving the fact that there is so much in the media about the owner of the Indianapolis Colts and their future Hall of Fame quarterback, Peyton Manning. The more that the trained monkeys write, the more I have to blog about. However, as a reasonable fan of the game--

Enough is enough!

It is incredible to me to hear the amount of BS that has come from everywhere in regards to the future of the franchise and its once unbreakable quarterback. I could go on at length over how surprising it was to hear Peyton say some not so nice things about the team. Jim Irsay's response was a little surprising, but what was really shocking is that he kept talking even after he admonished Peyton for saying too much himself.

Regardless of whatever drama is going to unfold between those two, I think the future is pretty clear--Peyton Manning is done in Indianapolis. The proof is not in anything that Peyton or Irsay has said, nor in what Rob Lowe has heard or any of the other talking heads. The proof is not in the pudding either, but in the recent hires for the team.

First, there is Chuck Pagano as the new head coach, a man with a defensive pedigree and the knowledge and know-how that this team needs to become a competitive defense. With the few playmakers that the team already has on defense they don't do half-bad. With the right coaching they stand to be one of the better units in the league.

Now while I think that was a pretty telling sign, I think the nail in the coffin is in the new offensive coordinator, former Pittsburgh Steelers OC Bruce Arians. It was pretty surprising to see the Steelers not bring this guy back; they've had one of the better offenses in the league since he took over the offensive in Pittsburgh in 2007.

What impressed me the most though was the fact that Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger was really upset that the team did not bring Arians back. It angered him enough that he is supposed to have a meeting with the team owner to discuss the future of the team (which he is worried about since they took away the offense's architect).

Big Ben's loss is Indianapolis's gain.

So how is that telling about the Colts and the future? I don't think the team would have bothered to bring in someone with Arians track record if they were still going to have Peyton Manning, an OC in his own right, on board. You get a guy like this when you plan on having a young guy behind center who will need the stability of a strong OC on the sideline.

I hate to see you go Peyton, and I hope that you and Irsay will get your act together soon. Both of you guys have been classy for too long to let things end on a sour note.

Sorry for the deception folks, but I had to figure out a way to get you to read this post. I thought if I made an outrageous claim like the Colts are going to win Sunday night (against the Pittsburgh Steelers) that your curiosity will be piqued because: 1.) you what to see if I know something that you don't or 2.) you what to see what sort of whacked out, off the wall logic I'm going to try to use to back that claim up and could use a good laugh.

Well, I don't know anything you don't and I'm not going to sit here and try to come up with some crazy scheme to justify saying the present Colts can beat the Steelers. In all honesty, I think it will simply take much more than this version of the Colts have to get the job done.

By now we are all aware of the capabilities of the Colts--average defense at best and an offense that needs another month of practice (or the OTAs that the lockout killed) in order to be operating to the best of its ability (translation--they are not that good right now, but I still believe there's hope). So let's go over what it will take from the Steelers to make this game a contest that the Colts could get a victory in.

Pittsburgh's passing attack is pretty solid averaging about 270 yards a game so far. As with most pass first offenses, the rushing attack is not so good statistically (20th in the NFL with 95 yards a game). I would venture to say that the team passes so much because they don't have a running back worthy of being a featured guy, but then again, most teams don't feature one back anymore.

What the Colts would need to put a stop to the Steelers offense is either some exceptionally bad play by Roethlisberger and at least one or two scores by the defense. The team can't count on the offense being able to take advantage of field position so they just need to do it themselves.

Big Ben did get knocked around last week (by a former Colt, Raheem Brock) and missed a couple plays. Should he get rocked again that would leave the Steeler offense floundering worse than the Colts. The team could get their opportunities via turnovers; the Ravens hauled in three INTs in Week One against the Steelers en route to a 35-7 thrashing of Pittsburgh.

There has been a lot of talk about the Steeler defense being too old--that's a load of crap. Those guys are as good as they ever where. If they are having any actual problem, I would venture to say that it is not being in sync with each other due to the lack of time to prepare for the season thanks to the lockout.

So for the Colts offense to have a chance against these guys--well, it would help if the guy with the hair didn't play--Kerry Collins needs to have a game like he did back with the Titans in 2008 when he hit 69 percent of his passes and led the team to a 31-14 win (though it would help if he got more than 215 yards).

Then again...the Steelers might be missing their own X factor this year. They did get spanked by the Ravens pretty bad. Last week they only managed to score 24 against the Seahawks (who are really, really, really bad). Maybe the Colts do have a snowball's chance in that hot place to win...

What do you think? What would it take for the Colts to win Sunday night against the Steelers?