Peyton Manning’s 1st Half in Super Bowl 44

You don't need me to tell you that it's not the smartest thing in the world to bet every prop on the board for Super Bowl Sunday. What you may want to do, if you're looking to turn some profit, is survey the field, and cherry pick a small group of proposition bets you think might give you the "best of it." I want to take a look at one of them right now, involving the NFL's best quarterback, Peyton Manning.

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PEYTON MANNING - MORE PASSING YARDS
1st Half -120
2nd Half -110

Here's one that is kind of interesting. Manning's statistics for this season show a very strong bias toward passing yards in the first half rather than the second. He has, in fact, thrown for 2709 yards, or 60%, in the first half and 1791 yards (39.8%) in the second. I don't know that you can attribute this simply to the fact that he chose to run the ball and nurse a considerable lead in the second halves of games either. Indianapolis won seven games by four points or less, so he was in enough close ones. In fact, 2588 yards (57.5%) came when his team was tied or behind.

There is a certain logic in his numbers, if you come to an understanding of the Colts' offense, which generated only 3.5 yards a carry in the running game this season, and struggled as well last season. This is not an attack like Baltimore might run, or might even be used in Minnesota, where the run could set up the pass. Manning has to go the opposite way; he has to use the pass to set up the run, which must benefit by having the defense stretched to its limits. Besides that, you go with your strengths.

The Indianapolis Colts philosophy, which may not always be successful, is that its defense is even more comfortable than other teams when it is making teams to play from behind, because it forces those opponents to reduce their options. Without an overwhelming stop unit, that is the way the Colts can be effective. Like the offense, which goes with Manning and his receivers because they play to their strengths, the defense has played to its strengths as well, putting pressure on the passers with speed rushers, and preventing big plays in the secondary.

Yeah, I know there might be a certain level of logic that would seem to dictate that manning would be more effective in the second half, after he has made the proper adjustments against defenses geared to stop him. Certainly that was the case against the Jets in the AFC title game. Then again, he did rip the Jets for 192 yards before being pulled early in the second half in the first meeting between the two teams.

While you can't really say Manning has always shown a bias quite to this degree, there has nonetheless been a consistent recent pattern of producing more in the first half. In fact, over the last three seasons he has accounted for 55.7% of his passing yards in the first half, and 44.3% in the second. He's thrown 64.2% of his touchdown passes in the first half as well. Specific to this season, that figure is 63.6%.

Over the course of his entire career, the bias has not been as pronounced, with 52.6% of the yards, and 51.9% of the touchdowns coming in the first half. However, many of those Colt teams early in his career were different than this one; most notably they had Edgerrin James in the backfield, which may have dictated a different approach on offense. The more recent data is the most pertinent.