Written by Jeff Rich

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There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, even if there’s nothing concrete about what’s right and what’s wrong.  To handle a bad set of circumstances with professionalism and class deserves praise, and of course we’ve had a week to absorb the PR Utopia that offered closure to Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts going their separate ways.  Fans in Cleveland might not know how to handle something like that; I personally don’t even recall a nice retirement presser from those parts, but everyone remembers the departures.

Our minds quickly take us back to that Boys and Girls Club in Greenwich, and we can’t help but notice that Jim Gray isn’t a part of this Manning situation.  We think to ourselves, if there’s a right way and a wrong way to do something difficult, we’ve now seen the polar opposite of right and wrong.  I’m not going to lie, I’ve thought about it, how things would be different now if they were different on July 8, 2010, and how different things would be for the Colts and Peyton Manning had they followed suit.  It’s easy to go there, but we don’t need to go there, and probably should not go there.  Perhaps, there is a different, healthier way for Cavs fans to look at the public relations details surrounding Manning’s exit from Indianapolis.

It’s not healthy to look at Manning, to look at what he gave the fans of Indianapolis for over a decade, and wonder why no one else gets kicked in the teeth by an athlete on their way out.  For Cavs fans, maybe they should skip the Manning coverage as it evolves into a matter of where he will go, where he should go, and who should be bitter about missing out.  You see, we already know that he’s not returning to familiar territory, so this is nothing like that of which we shall not speak.  However, Cavs fans should look at Manning and think about the franchise being built around someone so special that they carry the team to places it’s never been.  It’s easy to think, we had that, we saw that for seven years, and it came to a bitter end; why not reboot, and realize that it’s only just begun with Kyrie Irving?

Peyton Williams Manning, the son of an NFL quarterback, came on the scene in 1998 as the first overall pick in the draft.  Despite similar reviews regarding the potential of one Ryan David Leaf, the Colts opted to go with #1 over #1A.  Manning was joining a team that obviously wasn’t championship or even playoff ready, adding him and a bunch of guys you don’t remember to a 3-13 team.  Manning managed to break quite a few rookie passing records in his first year in Indianapolis, but the important result was the same.  The team finished the 1998 with 3 up and 13 down. 

In 1999, with the aid of the fourth overall pick in a draft that Cincinnati and Cleveland couldn’t display competence, they netted themselves a running game in the form of Edgerrin James.  The running back from Miami (not South Beach) would run for over 9,000 yards, a team record.  In fact, most franchise records, including Marvin Harrison’s receiving yards and Tony Dungy’s 85 coaching victories, for the Colts would come on Peyton Manning’s watch.  Of course, records are going to fall when you win 10-14 games each year.

It isn’t the 141-67 record, the eleven playoff appearances, the AFC Championships, or even the Super Bowl ring that makes Manning what he is, a transcendent figure in the world of sports.  He’s arguably the best pitch man in all of sports, and yes, that includes much more popular athletes of Jordan or Ali ilk.  He’s a coach on the field, probably the best ever, which isn’t meant as a dig at the Lou Boudreau types, the official player-coaches.  He brought football to Indianapolis, who stole it from Baltimore in 1984, giving them 10-win seasons on a regular basis.  That’s something the Indianapolis faithful didn’t see in its first fifteen years with the Colts, not with Eric Dickerson and not with Marshall Faulk.

The Colts mattered with Manning; you could pencil them in for the playoffs every year.  You could count on Manning versus Brady every season, and you were disappointed when that matchup didn’t happen in the playoffs.  He was either the Bird to Brady’s Magic, or the Magic to Brady’s Bird.  On an individual level, that comparison works, but the pre-Manning Colts don’t belong in any type of discussion with the Lakers or Celtics, before, during, or after the days of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.  In the end, he brought a Championship to a place that isn’t supposed to get Championships, even if it was widely speculated that he should have won more, but that would be focusing on all of the wrong kind of details.

You aren’t going to get a comparison of apples to apples with Kyrie Irving’s situation in the beginning with Cleveland versus Manning’s early days with Jim Mora’s Colts.  Enough time had passed, and enough mileage had been logged on the moving trucks that Peyton never had to deal with the shadow of Johnny Unitas with Colts fans.  Where Indianapolis may have never had any Super Bowl aspirations, Irving is coming to a place where that seed has been planted and the fans are hungry.  There is very much a shadow cast over him; that shadow plays his home games in Miami and is allegedly a very good friend of his. 

That type of pressure cannot be easy.  The presence of the guy they used to love is still everywhere, between an estate in nearby Akron and his takes on the Cleveland Indians on Sportscenter, the ghost is still there.  There’s a giant mural of the city skyline in plain sight of Quicken Loans Arena, and everyone knows what used to be there.  In the same way the pressure was off Peyton’s chase of his father Archie, the fact that the mural and the hype that surrounded its subject, Kyrie’s first championship will put his tally above the both the elder Manning and what the other guy achieved in Cleveland.

Before we start talking about the parades down Euclid Avenue, or the disappointment that would accompany any alternative, we have to appreciate what Kyrie has been for Cleveland so far.  The truth is, he was drafted first overall on his reputation more than his resume, and there were those out there doubting the Cavaliers decision to take him instead of a Power Forward from Arizona named Derrick Williams.  For Williams sake, let’s hope he’s not another Ryan Leaf, but Kyrie appears to be the right pick, but he has to continue to earn that reputation.  A bad night, even in a season where most of his team’s fans think it’s best for them to lose every night out, get the interwebs buzzing.

He’s had his bad nights.  In fact, his first night was a bad night; 12 attempts from the field, 10 didn’t go in.  People were (irrationally) ready to send him, his six points, his busted toe, and his eleven game college resume back Krzyzewskiville.  When people forget about Grant Hill and Elton Brand, all Duke alumni become typical overrated Dukies, and suddenly Cleveland State’s Norris Cole (taken 30^th overall) is the guy they were supposed to take.  With all the hype, we aren’t ready to give our rookies any slack, and maybe he deserves some.

He’s not immune from having a bad day.  The 3-for-13 and 1-of-7 nights are bound to happen, but what’s impressive is how much he’s evolved.  On February 22^nd, the worst game I watched all season, he was 2 out of 13 from the field, with a goose egg from beyond the arc, but he’s learning to create shots for others when he’s off.  He had 11 dimes in that loss to the Hornets.  On March 9^th, though he was just 4 for 12 shooting, he had 12 assists and they won the game against Oklahoma City.  How much should we care that he only had 9 points?  Does the argument for tanking not center around the fact that one guy can’t do it by himself?  He’s got the game winners, and he’s shown he can take over a game when the opportunity presents itself.  That’s the beginning of the Kyrie Irving Era for you.

If we know the beginning, what’s the middle and end of Kyrie Irving and Cleveland?  Can it be fourteen years?  Is there a Championship to be found in the middle?  Does he make his teammates better? That’s a big one in the plus column for Peyton Manning.  Will Kyrie Irving be good, great, transcendent, or perhaps even legendary?   Cleveland doesn’t have that guy, not in the modern era.  We can cling on to Otto Graham, Jim Brown, and Rocky Calavito all day long, but tell me someone under 30, under 40 even that identifies Cleveland sports with any of those guys. 

Here’s the news flash; it doesn’t take a championship to be that guy.  It helps, sure, but if the Bears take down Peyton Manning on that rainy evening in Miami, how different are things right now?  Okay, the pressure if off a little bit and Indianapolis won’t be quite as bitter if Manning wins in a new town.  It won’t be as bitter as Cleveland will be when the Heat win (if the Heat win).  Seriously, is it the Super Bowl ring that makes him brilliant on the field?  If Tony Dungy never puts a #1 rated defense around him, and Joseph Addai doesn’t pick up the slack to get them over the hump, is Manning not still marketable?

I’ve gone long enough without the elusive title for my hometown, and make no mistake, there’s only one I wouldn’t want to get one, but the bar is set low.  All I’m asking from Kyrie Irving is 100% every time out.  I want to look at him in ten years and say, that guy is the epitome of what it takes to be a Cleveland Cavalier.  I want to see the face of the franchise, the type of ambassador that makes our city, our region proud.  We can talk about how Kyrie brought a winning culture to Cleveland and his induction to Springfield in due time, but there’s no fun in skipping ahead to the end of the book.

If Kyrie can save us, if he can mean half as much as Manning has meant to Indiana, then we should step back and enjoy it.  This is only the beginning.