There was one point during the Colts’ 31-24 win over Jacksonville Thursday night when I thought: “Absurd.” Just one word. David Garrard—David Garrard!—was carving up a defense. MJD was owning Indianapolis like only MJD can, spinning off a tackle here, juking there, running through eleven men everywhere. If Bob Papa said, “3rd and ___ Jacksonville from the ___” one minute, he said “1st down Jacksonville from the ___” the next. I’m fully convinced that had they suited up for the home team, Charlie Brown could’ve booted a 50-yarder with Lucy holding. Read the following as scrupulously as you wish, but it’s true: the Indianapolis Colts allowed the Jacksonville Runnin’ And Gunnin’ Jaguars to amass 409 yards of total offense.

And Horse won?

They won because Peyton Manning: (1) completed a sublime 17 straight passes to begin the game, (2) was successful on 85% of his tosses overall for a total of 364 yards, and (3) consumed the Jacksonville defense with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse. For the better part of 50 minutes, the Indianapolis defense would be damned if they wouldn’t lose the game. And over that same span, as much as he could, Peyton Manning would be damned if he let that happen.

No team should ever win a game rushing for fewer than 40 yards. Yet the Colts have done just that not once, not twice, but three times. Against the Steelers, they ran for a meager 62 yards. What’d Peyton do? Throw for 240 yards, 3 touches, and no picks. Indy defies logic, because they are simply not a good football team. They are inept stopping the run. They seem to find new ways to leave points on the field every week—consider the latest example: a 3rd and 1 call late in the first half that saw Dominic Rhodes run sideways in a novel attempt to actually gain yardage, followed by a beautifully shanked 30-yard chippie that, to my untrained eye, literally defied physics. They couldn’t run the ball if they lined up Paul Bunyan and The Flash in the Power-I. Put simply, the Colts can’t do the meat and potatoes things that winning teams do. If the NFL was comprised of runway models, the Titans, Steelers, Giants, and Panthers would be the ugly ducklings. But the NFL is not comprised of runway models.

Yet somehow, someway, the Indianapolis Colts could have the second best record in the AFC by week’s end. Someone, please, give me an explanation beside the utterance of “Peyton Manning”. I beg you. No takers? Me neither. Through all of Indianapolis’s thick and thin—year after year, even—he and his head coach are the constants. Sure, Peyton makes poor throws and suffers from the occasional mental lapse, but through a season’s sum of 960 minutes of football, he finds a way to get it done. Talking heads would have you believe that Vince Young was a winner just because his team had a good record while he was a starter. But what games has Vince Young really won for his team? Ask the same of Manning. That’s why the latter is a winner. He wins games.

What’s more is that we’ve seen the value of Tom Brady revealed this season. With Brady, the Patriots are great; without him, they are good. With Manning, the Colts are good and frequently great; without him, I can’t bear to imagine their record. I look upon Brady and Manning as veritable equals. Brady has the more powerful arm and the greater killer instinct, whereas Manning can fit throws into seemingly impossible windows and has a football brain the size of Texas. Even on these qualities, the differences almost wash. Who would I rather have on my team? Give me a coin and I’ll flip it. Who’s more important to their team? Based on the reasonable amount of evidence we have to examine, I’m not sure how anyone couldn’t say Manning. In fact, I’m not sure there’s a more valuable player to his team at any point during a given season. Is James Harrison valuable to the Steelers? Absolutely. But James Harrison doesn’t touch the football sixty times per game, thus why quarterbacks are inherently the most valuable players in the NFL, and subsequently why they win the lion’s share of MVP awards. I don’t see anything wrong with that.

As such, I don’t see anything wrong with Peyton Manning winning the league’s MVP award this season. How many more times must he prove himself? Without him, the Colts are 4-11 and not 11-4. He has keyed a winning streak spanning two months with 71% passing, 16 touchdowns, and 3 interceptions. He is the reason why one of the NFL’s giants still has a fighting chance.

Check that. He is the giant.