If you had told me 8 years ago, when JRIB debuted, that I’d be leading my last JRIB episode later today with Peyton Manning getting run out of Indy, I would have (laughed in your face). He had rattled off 5 consecutive 4000 yard seasons, was just named the league MVP and was halfway to getting his yellow blazer and becoming one of the greatest quarterbacks ever. Believe me, one day, he would let the Colts know he was done with them; they weren’t going to tell him jack.

Or so I thought. Because 8 years and 1400 plus JRIB episodes later, the icon is about to get kicked out of the house he built. After seeing he and owner Jim Irsay trade blows in the media this week, not only is this over, it’s ending terribly... Whatever slim chance Manning had of returning to the team vaporized in the series of nuclear bombs Irsay dropped on him yesterday. He cracked Manning for being a “politician” and then blasted him for not keeping it in house after his sit-down with the Indianapolis Star News. That’s pretty rich: a loose cannon owner with a Twitter account busting his icon up for not quote, keeping it in house. And so is Irsay using his Chuck Pagano introductory presser to smoke Manning. And Manning, being the politician Irsay says he is, smartly moved to defuse the situation instead of escalate it. Sharp. He has more than just a pair of jeans to pimp and doesn’t want his rep and brand damaged the way Brett Favre’s were.

Photos: Peyton

So he got off a nice, passive - aggressive shot saying, “I wasn’t trying to paint the Colts in a bad light, but it’s tough when so many people you’ve known for so long are suddenly leaving. I feel very close to a lot of these guys and we’ve done great things together. It’s hard to watch an old friend clean out his office. That’s all I was trying to say.” Again, very political: very tactical and very smart: like, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want anything to change. I love this place. And want it to be exactly the way it’s always been, where we go to the playoffs every single year. But dad gum it, Jim doesn’t want me back and he’s fired everyone else in the building. So I really don’t know what to do. Slick. Manning will come out on top in the battle for public opinion, but Irsay has a business to run. And he’s making the right business decision. It’s just too bad it had to play out like this publicly. But these things usually do. And while 8 years ago, I would have never seen this coming, I probably should have.