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Peyton Manning not only is responsible for losing the Super Bowl, he apparently contributed to the death of sportsmanship after the Super Bowl.
His crime: Not shaking hands with the winner.
According to the overnight TV ratings, there were 106.5 million witnesses. The worry is that millions of impressionable kids might start emulating Manning.
Please allow me to calm your fears. There are a lot of things to criticize about Manning's performance. Not shaking hands with Drew Brees isn't one of them.
"Peyton is a class guy," Brees said.
If he doesn't have a problem with Manning's quick exit, why should we?
For one thing, Manning is easy to love and hate. If you are rankled by all his commercials, pre-snap gyrations and Goody Two-Shoed success, he just handed you a stick to bash him with.
But Manning had ample reasons for heading straight to the locker room. None of which his critics are currently buying.
"If somebody beats you up, you're not going to congratulate them," he explained. "That doesn't make sense to me."
If this were street fighting and somebody just stole your wallet, sure. But these are games. Congratulating the other team after a good fight simply shows class.
James had no intention of congratulating the Magic. Manning had every intention of giving the Saints their due. He just wanted to do it on his own terms, not that of the TV audience or traditionalists who consider the post-game handshake sacred.
Sure, it would have been nice to see him embrace Brees as the confetti fluttered down. But probably two-thirds of NFL players walk off the field every week without bothering to shake hands. And those are games where the field doesn't instantaneously turn into a massive mosh pit.
The second after the gun sounds at the Super Bowl, thousands of photographers, videographers, technicians, roadies, dignitaries and flunkies swarm the field. Remember the old champagne-soaked awards ceremony in the locker room?
Probably not, since the NFL now throws up a stage, cues the fireworks and presents the Vince Lombardi Trophy on the field as trumpets blare. Manning didn't want any part of that scene, and I don't blame him.
He didn't say it, but he was also in no mood to fraternize. Nobody works more or competes harder than Manning. It's all for one reason, and he'd just seen that goal blow up in his face.
What's worse, he was largely responsible for it. It was a low point of his life, and he couldn't instantaneously put on a happy face and play the role of Vanquished Foe.
That doesn't make him classless. That makes him human.
Manning trotted off the field, took a quick shower, put on a suit and headed to the press conference. He sat there for 11 minutes getting peppered with questions about why he and the Colts blew it.
It reminded me of a great Olympic moment. I've forgotten all the details, but a team from Greece or the Czech Republic had just lost a bitter volleyball match. A radio reporter from back home stuck a microphone in a player's face.
"You are a disgrace to your country. Your comments?"
The guy dutifully answered.
Nobody quite told Manning, "You are disgrace to your city," but it was close. Manning never got snippy. He patiently and politely answered every question, took responsibility for his mistakes and praised Saints cornerback Tracy Porter, whose interception will go down as Manning's Bill Buckner Moment.
Manning never intimated that the interception should have also been pinned on receiver Reggie Wayne, who gave his route away and let Porter beat him to the ball.
After saying how disappointed he was 18 times, Manning bid everyone farewell. He'll probably spend the next six months locked in a film room flogging himself. But before he disappeared, Manning said he had one thing left to do.
He was going to call Brees and congratulate him.
You can't just look at what you didn't see on TV, you have to see the whole picture. If millions of impressionable kids started acting like Manning, we'd all be better off.
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