(RNS) As a New York Jets fan, I was both frustrated and fascinated as I watched the Indianapolis Colts dismantle the Jets’ Super Bowl hopes in a conference title game on Sunday (Jan. 24).

In losing 30-17, our Jets weren’t out-hustled, out-skilled or out-coached. What I saw from the vantage point of HDTV and endless replays of nearly every down was simple yet profound: the Jets were out-thought.

Like an expert chess player, Colts quarterback Peyton Manning probed the Jets’ vaunted defense, found its weakness — the mid-range seam between linebackers defending short passes and safeties preventing bombs — and relentlessly exploited it.

Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez has skills equal to Manning’s, but he’s a rookie and hasn’t yet learned how to “think” the opponent into submission. In a game that can seem to be dominated by brawn and breaks, thinking might be the ultimate weapon.

The realization was sobering and yet hopeful.

We live in an anti-thinking era that denigrates “pointy-headed intellectuals” (as George Wallace famously dismissed opponents of segregation) and refuses to accept nuance, subtleties, compromise and doubt.

It often seems better to tap the mindless rage of the vexed than to examine reality; better to turn the downtrodden into swarming mobs than to address their legitimate needs; better to paint critical political issues as good vs. evil than to balance competing self-interests in solutions that a majority can live with; better to demonize one’s enemy than to show respect for a different opinion; better to distort facts than to probe complex situations.

Rather than be troubled by a candidate’s lack of knowledge and poor preparation, partisans exalt inadequacy as an asset promising a “common touch.” We surrender prime time to the shouters, not the thoughtful.

The drive against thinking is more than politics. Rather than encourage young adults to use computers for exploring human knowledge and resolving human problems, we encourage an estimated seven hours a day of texting and gaming, as if multi-tasking during class and manual dexterity in virtual combat were critical skills.

Religion, too, is marred by partisans who throw sacred texts as weapons, rather than deeply study them.

Education also prizes obedience and conformity — from standing in line to taking standardized tests — and treats the restlessness, curiosity and boredom of children as problems requiring medication.

Entertainment is no better — it prefers violence and voyeurism to the subtleties of character development and ambiguities of human motivation.

Business turns predatory, rather than thoughtful, and heaps outlandish rewards on those who react quarter to quarter, rather than those who think long-term.

We need more players like Peyton Manning, who can think their way through a problem.

We need more engineers whose instinct is to solve problems, not pursue short-term gain through trivial fads.

We need more teachers who challenge students to think and hold them accountable for laziness, even if parents object.

We need political leaders who explore complexities, not yesterday’s polling figures, and think their way through to actual solutions.

We need religious leaders who affirm different opinions and encourage the humility that comes from thinking.

We need cultural leaders who see our hunger for meaning.

We need business leaders who value invention, research, long-term horizons and thoughtful engagement with a volatile global economy.

I’m convinced we have such thoughtfulness in our midst. We just need more examples like No. 18, who took a bad first half in stride and just thought harder.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)