It’s not enough to say the Indianapolis Colts will be a team at the crossroads in 2006. They were at the crossroads this season; next season several of their key players will be past the age at which they would be expected to be at their peaks. Wide receiver Marvin Harrison will be 34; Brandon Stokley will be 30; and Edgerrin James will be 28, an advanced age for a running back, and he’ll be coming off a 373-carry season.

The 2006 Colts may be as good as they were in 2005, but their fans don’t want to hear that. They want to hear that the Colts will be better, and on paper it doesn’t appear they will be.

Of course, the major consideration is that Peyton Manning will be back and, at age 30, expected to still be at his peak. How good, exactly, is that? Well, many regard Dan Marino as the best passer ever. Let’s compare Marino to Manning at the same age.

By 1990, Marino had thrown 4,181 passes for 31,416 yards; Peyton has thrown 4,333 passes for 33,189 yards. Marino had 241 touchdown passes against 136 interceptions; Manning has 244 touchdowns against 130 interceptions. In the most important passing statistic, yards per throw, Marino comes in at 7.5 to Manning’s 7.7. These numbers don’t mean that Manning is better, but they don’t mean he isn’t.

Now let’s compare Manning to John Elway – no, let’s not. Elway, whether you want to blame the personnel around him or his coaches, was never the best passer in the game and was regarded by many to be as big a choker as many insist Manning is now – that is, until Elway found the right head coach, Mike Shanahan. As it stands now, Marino and Manning are vying for the unofficial title of Greatest Passer Never To Win The Big One.

Is Manning, who’s now 3-6 in postseason play, a choker? Again, let’s review:

In 1999, Manning’s rookie season, the Colts lost a 19-16 thriller to the Tennessee Titans, who went on to lose in the Super Bowl. Tennessee was the better team and should have won. The following year, the 10-6 Colts played the 11-5 Dolphins at Miami and lost 23-17, just about what one would have expected. In 2002, the Colts lost 41-0 to the Jets, a disgraceful defeat. In 2003, Manning made amends by wiping out Denver, 41-10, and then beating Kansas City 38-31. The 14-4 Colts played the 15-2 Patriots at Foxboro and lost, 24-14. Was this a choke? Hardly. The Patriots were the better team and had the home field advantage.

In 2004, the Colts routed Denver 49-24 in the first round, then lost to New England in the divisional playoff, 20-3, playing poorly in frozen Foxboro. But, again, was it really a choke? Weren’t the Patriots again the better team? Shouldn’t they have been expected to win in any and all situations, and by at least five or six points?

Let’s look at Manning’s postseason performances another way – by comparing them to Tom Brady’s. Brady has appeared in 11 postseason games and thrown 367 passes for 2,493 yards. In nine postseason games, Manning has thrown 322 passes for 2,461 yards. Brady has 15 touchdown passes against five interceptions; Manning, in two fewer games, has also thrown for 15 touchdowns, but has eight interceptions. Manning’s postseason interception rate of 2.5% isn’t bad; Brady’s, at 1.4%, is one of the best ever. But Manning’s yards per throw, 7.6 (less than a tenth of a yard behind his career average), is substantially higher than Brady’s 6.8.

I’m not arguing that, overall, Brady hasn’t been a better postseason quarterback than Manning. What I’m suggesting is that the difference between them, or at least much of it, might be due to the fact that in each of the three years the Patriots went to the Super Bowl, Brady was playing for the better team.

Since 1999, Manning and the Colts have scored 21.8 points per game in the playoffs, which is below their regular season average of 26, but not startlingly lower, given the quality of playoff defenses. The Colts’ postseason defense, on the other hand, has allowed an average of 23.8 points per game. The Patriots, in their 11 postseason games with Brady, have averaged 23.5 points per game on offense and allowed only 16.8. I don’t know that it’s necessarily true that “defense wins championships,” but I think it can be said with some certainty that defense has been the main reason the Patriots won theirs. Given Manning’s and Brady’s postseason records, it’s not inconceivable that if they had switched defenses, Peyton would own a couple of Super Bowl rings.

Did Manning play his best game in the Colts’ loss to the Steelers? No, but his 290 yards and one touchdown were enough to win most games. And weren’t there, to put it mildly, extenuating circumstances? After the death of Tony Dungy’s son, there was endless speculation as to how the tragedy might affect the Colts’ concentration. But after the loss to Pittsburgh, a game that offered ample evidence that Dungy and the Colts were, indeed, distracted, the emphasis shifted back to whether Manning choked.

None of this comes under the realm of “excuses” because Manning hasn’t offered any. He has been roasted in the press for his polite suggestion that perhaps the Colts’ pass blocking wasn’t at its best – a perfectly reasonable statement considering that he was sacked five times and knocked down six others. And if Mike Vanderjagt’s field goal attempt is good and the game goes into overtime, is our perception of Peyton’s performance altered?

The Colts will be no one’s confident pick to win it all next season, but neither will anyone else. They will still have the best quarterback in the game, and that’s a good place to start.

Mr. Barra is the author, most recently, of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.”