Was This It for Peyton Manning? After Weak Performance in Broncos’ 24-13 Playoff Loss to Colts, Broadcasters Question Legendary QB’s Future… as Does Manning (Photoessay)

 

Peyton Manning earlier today; he's 38, and his arm looked 58 against the Colts
 

By Nicholas Stix

The game just ended, and the questions just began. Peyton Manning was terrible today. He was helped by at least three dropped passes on easy screens and short passes, especially two by Demaryius Thomas, but Manning looked worse than I’ve ever seen him. Only one year after a record-breaking season, he lacked precision and arm strength, and looked very old.
 

Andrew Luck today; this game represented a passing of the torch, as Manning lost to the young man for whom the Colts had dumped him
 

In March, he turns 39.

Toward the end of the game, CBS announcers Jim Nantz and Phil Simms talked about how bad Manning looked, and he faded late in the season.

I recall what an announcer said of Joe Montana at the end of his career. The man who led the 49ers to four Super Bowl victories was by then with the Chiefs. Following a playoff loss in which Joe Cool’s team had led at halftime, the broadcaster observed, “The old ones can still do it, but they just can’t do it for as long.”

Manning had a Peyton-like first half of the season, before looking his age in the stretch run, and following today’s loss, suggested he is rethinking his promise to come back for 2015, for which he is contracted to earn $19 million.

If Manning retires now, after 16 seasons, he will go into the books as the all-time passing leader in touchdowns, completions, and attempts, and number two—perhaps half a season behind Brett Favre—in yardage. He has one Super Bowl ring, five league MVP awards, one Super Bowl MVP award, assorted other honors, has been selected for the Pro Bowl every year but two (one of which was his rookie season), and has a mind-boggling stat sheet.

Still, if this is it for Peyton Manning, many observers will focus on his shortcomings. Despite being for many years the best player in the league, and on teams where he was surrounded by great players, he has been plagued by postseason disappointment. He led his teams, the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos, respectively, to an 11-13 playoff mark and three Super Bowls, winning only one, against a woefully overmatched Chicago Bears team, 29-17, eight years ago. Six years ago, his Colts lost the big game 31-17, to the Saints. In the biggest black mark of Manning’s career, in 2013 he had a career year, led the Broncos to a record-breaking offensive season, and went into the Super Bowl heavily favored over a much less experienced Seahawks team, only to have a complete meltdown, along with his team, and get blown out, 43-8, in one of the worst chokes in NFL history.

Manning’s career will always be compared unfavorably to that of his archnemesis and rival for the title “greatest quarterback of their generation,” and possibly of all time, the New England Patriots’ Tom Brady, whose playoff record is 19-8, and who has so far led the Pats to five Super Bowls, winning three.
 

Tom Brady after yesterday's come-from-behind victory over the Ravens. For the rest of their lives, today's fans will debate which QB was better, but what cannot be debated was that the rivalry made each other, and the NFL better.
 

This is all most unfair to one of the nicest men in the game, and one who has one Super Bowl ring, for which he earned the Super Bowl MVP award. But as the philosopher Jack Kennedy said, “Life is unfair.” Peyton Manning’s problem has been that with great talent comes great expectations.