Monday in the quaint city of Terre Haute Indiana was by most accounts the busiest day in the city’s history in terms of bottom-feeding fans flooding there to get autographs from Colts players on opening day of Training Camp.  Now don’t take “bottom-feeder” the wrong way fans, unless of course you are the type of person who also traveled to Terre Haute for the execution of Timothy McVeigh, just for “historical memories”.  If you are a diehard fan, than more power to you BUT-I am not pointing the Styrofoam #1 Colts finger at you, but what is the deal here?

Do you not understand the dire nature of what could ensue if Manning is required to sign autograph after autograph?  That wrist is the family jewels of the Colts team.  Asking him to sign all of these autographs is like asking you to play Dodgeball with golf balls and no “athletic supporter”.  Too high risk.  Let him rest the wrist!

Can there be some sort of sifting process by which only true fans can get autographs, therefore at least alleviating some of the danger involved with Manning possibly getting carpel tunnel?  It can be as simple as a Facebook quiz, whereby only the top 72 percentile of people correctly answering Manning related questions get the autograph.  Now this is coming from the same person, who took their boys out of school to get Gary Brackett’s autograph when he was at a local McDonald’s BUT, that wasn’t the first day of Training Camp.  And yes I would do some crazy things for autographs and certainly have, BUT—you get the point.  As Denzel Washington said in Meet the Titans “let the boys play!”

I have a solution for this issue-simply buy Colts Gear here on this website and by all means go watch the Colts practice in good ole’ Terre Haute.  But, let them practice and being that Monday was also opening day for my two sons’ football league and I shut up for that, anyone can do it.  Well, I am actually required by a signed written contract to be quiet, but that is another story.

Yet another idea that might make Manning and everyone else happy is instead of asking for HIS autograph, offer him YOURS.  Tell him you are the most awesome, loyal, and considerate fan ever and sign a napkin from Applebee’s or something.  Playing QB is hard work, people and Peyton needs a laugh and plenty of practice time and better him laughing now than all the other NFL teams laughing at us later—and then your autograph, oh dear considerate fan, would be worthless.