Peanut butter and jelly, cake and ice cream, milk and cookies, Colts and Peyton Manning … one without the other simply isn’t as good. But, given this is not a food column, we’ll focus on the Indianapolis Colts and the man most credit with being the best quarterback in the National Football League since the Indianapolis Colts spent the first draft pick of 1998 to select him out of the University of Tennessee.

Lindy Infante was the head coach for the Colts in 1997, and he gained the Colts the first pick in the draft while compiling the worst record in the league that year, 3-13. It was the last year Infante was a head coach in the NFL; he had also spent four seasons in the same position with the Green Bay Packers and compiled a 24-40 won/loss record before being fired after the 1991 season. At Indianapolis, Infante won his first four games in 1996 and led the Colts to a Wild Card playoff berth that season. But, that initial success dissolved into a lopsided loss at Pittsburgh in the playoffs and the league’s worst mark in 1997.

Jim Mora was hired as his replacement in Indianapolis, and in his first year with rookie quarterback Peyton Manning running the offense, the Colts record was no better than it was the previous year without him, 3-13. The turnaround for the Colts happened the following season, 1999, when Manning led Indianapolis to a 13-3 record, the AFC Eastern Division title and a home playoff date against the Tennessee Titans. A loss in his first postseason action that year fed to another season of a playoff berth and elimination in their first postseason game in 2000.

When the Colts failed to earn a playoff berth in 2001, something Mora had predicted in his famous postgame podium rant to the media late in that season, “Playoffs?! Playoffs?! We’ll be lucky to win another game.”

That meltdown by their head coach led to the firing of Mora and the hiring of Tony Dungy, who had surprisingly worn out his welcome in Tampa Bay when the Buccaneers possessed one the league’s best defenses but an offense that appeared to be designed on the back of a popcorn box.

In four seasons under Mora, Manning twice led the Colts to the playoffs and failed to win a postseason game. In seven years with Dungy as his head coach, Manning and the Colts won their division title five times and earned a playoff spot every season … including Wild Card berths in 2002 and 2008. In 2004, Manning threw an all-time record 49 touchdown passes in the 16 game regular season, compiling an almost perfect 121.1 Quarterback Rating. Two years later, he surrendered only nine interceptions while tossing 31 touchdowns and guided the Colts to a victory in Super Bowl XLI.

Dungy retired after the 2008 season, a year in which the Colts lost their only playoff game in overtime against the San Diego Chargers on the road. During their seven seasons together, the only knock on the Dungy/Manning partnership was their postseason record. Manning was 0-2 in playoff games under Mora, and lost six postseason games with Dungy running the show in Indianapolis while winning only three postseason games outside of their Super Bowl run in 2006.

While many will argue Manning is the best pure passer and team leader of all-time, when his one Super Bowl title is stacked up against the three earned by his contemporary Tom Brady, or the four won by Terry Bradshaw with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970’s and four captured by Joe Montana during the 1980’s with the San Francisco 49ers, the argument pales. Great quarterbacks do not always win multiple Super Bowls, or in the cases of Fran Tarkenton and Dan Marino, any.

So many elements have to come together for a team to win a Super Bowl, and solid play from the quarterback position is only one of the requirements. Manning has been as good as any regular season quarterback in history, but, without equal team success in the postseason, his legacy is more aligned with Tarkenton, Marino, Brett Favre and Donovan McNabb, who have only one Super Bowl win between them. Many will judge true quarterback greatness to the likes of Bradshaw, Montana, Brady and Troy Aikman, who combined have 14 Super Bowl rings among them.

Two years ago, the winning tandem of Dungy and Manning ended with the retirement of the well respected Indianapolis head coach, and more questions surrounded the Colts entering the 2009 season than they had confronted in almost a decade. The defense was fast but undersized, and the offense lost one of Manning’s primary targets with the departure of wide receiver Marvin Harrison.

In his first season as an NFL head coach, Jim Caldwell had huge shoes to fill and the jury was out until … well, until the season started.

No coach in history won more consecutive games to begin his pro coaching career than Caldwell. He guided the Colts to 14 straight triumphs and home field advantage in the American Football Conference playoffs before calling off the dogs at halftime in a Week 16 game Indianapolis was leading on their home field against the New York Jets. In the second half of that game, we got a look at the Colts without Manning … it wasn’t pretty.

The Colts surrendered the lead and game in the final 30-minutes that Sunday to end their bid for a perfect season, and after Manning made his 192 consecutive career start the following week in Buffalo, once he was removed from the game the Colts dropped like an anvil from a helicopter. The Bills 30-7 win over Indianapolis to close out the 2009 regular season was more a protection of the Colts prized quarterback than it was an indicator of true team strengths.

Healthy and rested, the Colts, with Manning leading the way, got home wins over the Baltimore Ravens and New York Jets to advance to their second Super Bowl of the decade and were favored over the New Orleans Saints in Roman Numeral Forty-Four. The Colts sprinted to a 10-0 first quarter lead in that game, but then sputtered into the fourth quarter needing a Manning touchdown drive to even the score in the final minutes.

Instead, Manning’s short pass intended for Reggie Wayne on third-and-five was intercepted by Tracy Porter and returned 74 yards for the final score in a 31-17 Saints win.

Now the Colts look to rebound from that Super Bowl setback and are the current favorite in Las Vegas to win Super Bowl XLV next February at Cowboys Stadium.

Not likely.

No team that lost the Super Bowl returned the following year to win it since the 1972 Miami Dolphins defeated the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII after losing to the Dallas Cowboys the prior year. In fact, the only two teams over the past decade to even return to the playoffs the year after losing the Super Bowl were a pair of squads out of the recently weak NFC West; the Seattle Seahawks in 2006 and the Arizona Cardinals last year. Of the ten past Super Bowl losers six have gone on to have a losing record the following year, and three teams have fallen from Conference Champion to last place in their division.

History does not point to success this season for the Colts … neither does motivation.

In 2009, the Colts were challenged to compensate for the loss of Tony Dungy, and they responded to Jim Caldwell with a banner season. This year, the pressure is off, and so is the motivational boost to vault them to the top. The books have the Colts favored to win the Super Bowl based on public opinion … but the popular choice is not buoyed by the facts that generate greatness.

Manning has led the Colts to the postseason eight straight years … but this season, he meets the invisible foe of expectations that exceed his team’s talent level and a new threat in the AFC South Division … the Houston Texans. Eliminating the Colts from Super Bowl consideration is not difficult; expecting them to also miss the postseason appears more risky than ambitious.

It’s not.

The Colts come up lame this season.

NEXT WEEK: CAROLINA PANTHERS REGROUP