CHAPTER 24

“HE THROWS DUCKS”

As it turned out, Peyton was prescient to wonder, when he was considering signing with Denver, if John Fox and Mike McCoy would stick it out with the team. Fox stuck, but McCoy split, taking the head-coaching job with the Chargers. Adam Gase took over as offensive coordinator, and the Broncos picked up right where they left off, as did Manning. He cranked up 659 passes in 2013, getting in line with the massive numbers being compiled by Brees, who had gone over 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns two years in a row, and Rodgers, who just missed 40 for a second straight season. In the past, crazy air numbers like that generally accompanied losing teams, and teams in general threw much more often with much less efficiency. Now, it was expected that fewer passes would gain big. In ’12, four quarterbacks, old and young, had just missed 5,000 yards—Brady, Romo, Matt Ryan, and Matthew Stafford—and the rookie Luck had 4,374. Now, the man who had already thrown 49 touchdowns, way back in 2004 (that record, alas, bettered by Brady in ’07), was about to do something really crazy.

The opener, on the first Thursday night, brought in the world champion Ravens, not on ice but an 83-degree evening, a lovely Rocky Mountain high—but only for the home team. Peyton, numb fingers, mummified anatomy, and all, was never better, a tribute to spinal fusion and Scotch tape. The Ravens took a 17–14 halftime lead, then were steamrollered. Manning, who had thrown two touchdowns to Julius Thomas, the new starting tight end, went on a ridiculous spree. Within 27½ minutes, on three straight possessions and five of the last eight, he finished off drives with a touchdown pass, only once needing more than five plays. Leaving the deep backs watching aerials fly over their heads, he threw one for 28 yards to Andre Caldwell, with the playoff hero Graham clutching at him and called for holding. To give him another major weapon, Elway had signed Wes Welker as a free agent, and Brady’s former target got the next serving. After a blocked punt, Peyton flipped a five-yard touchdown to him; then on the next drive, a two-yard touchdown. It was 35–17 then, and, padding the lead, he hit Thomas with two more, from 28 and then a short one that broke for 78 yards. Final: 49–27. Seven touchdowns, 462 yards, 141.1 rating. Zero picks. Statement made.

In the carnage, he became the sixth man to throw for seven scores (though, attesting to how the game had changed, just that year it would happen again, the Eagles’ mediocre Nick Foles doing it against the Raiders; and Brees would get there in 2015). It was also his 11th 400-yard game, at the time putting him one behind Brees—three days before Eli rang up his fifth, against the Cowboys. As it happened, the brothers then met for the third Manning Bowl, at MetLife Stadium, meaning more distractions for each—and another sympathetic postgame pat on the head by Peyton, whose second touchdown pass, to Julius Thomas, early in the fourth quarter broke open a close game and sent the Broncos to a 41–23 rout. For Eli, it was a four-interception nightmare and an early augury that the yin would again be the yang, and Eli again the “other” Manning.

Never getting traction, the Giants offense was a shambles. The defense was crippled before the season even began; on July 4, Jason Pierre-Paul was setting off fireworks, got too close, and damn near lost his right hand. His thumb and forefinger fractured, the latter was so badly damaged it had to be amputated five days later. He resolved to return, and did, on a one-year deal worth $4 million less than the year before. He played surprisingly well, recording six sacks and returning a fumble 43 yards for a touchdown in a game against the Browns, but in December he went down for the season with a sports hernia. During the season, the Giants were thumped by the Panthers 38–0 and the Chiefs 31–7. The Cowboys pretty much ended their season in late November, when, after Eli led another of his comebacks, tossing two touchdowns to tie the game 21–21 with 4:45 left, Romo led his own 13-play drive and Dallas kicked the winning 35-yard field goal with four seconds left. The Giants finished out of the money at 7–9, not even reaching 300 points for the season.

Eli, in another sharp fall from grace, passed for 3,818 yards but only 18 touchdowns—and, the killer stat, 27 interceptions, a product of the complete failure of the running game. Of the receivers, only Victor Cruz was a game-breaker, and Eli only found him for four touchdowns. He was the Giants’ all-time passing leader, but some wondered if he had peaked too soon. Or if David Tyree and Mario Manningham had saved him from being Jay Cutler, a fate to which he would now revert.

At the other end of the scale, the Broncos won their first six games, scoring over 50 points in back-to-back games. Peyton already had thrown for 20 touchdowns, compared with six Bronco rushing scores. (He also vaulted past Marino for second on the all-time passing yardage list, behind Favre.) The team set a record for points scored in five games. Manning set another for most touchdowns (20) without a pick. As Mike Klis wrote, “This is not so much about the Broncos. This is about Peyton Manning.”¹ If it was about his pride, two games later came the one he really wanted, his return to Indianapolis, the buzz making the Manning Bowl seem mild. The week-long run-up to the October 20 contest was, predictably, a re-airing of old grievances, sparked by Irsay saying there was “no way” the Colts’ reemergence, led by Luck, could have happened “if [Manning] is in Indy.”² This was merely logical, of course, but it came out as a dig, which was why John Fox called it “inappropriate” and a “cheap shot” at Manning.

Peyton seemed relieved that the Denver media focused more on the Broncos’ self-inflicted screw-ups. Just within the past two weeks, both kicker Matt Prater and Wes Welker were suspended for four games each by the league for violating its substance abuse policy. That story dominated the week, and Peyton curiously said, “I guess I wasn’t shocked” about Welker, and that “I guess I had an idea that it might be happening,” though he went no further.³ On Wednesday, on a video hookup with the Indianapolis media, he kept it positive, refusing to bad-mouth Irsay. The Indianapolis Star’s Bob Kravitz had come to Denver to interview him, and, cornering him in a hallway, asked if he harbored any resentment toward the Colts. “It’s just easier not to answer anything along those lines,” he said. Kravitz wrote that “there was something very telling in his body language. . . . [H]e clearly has some issues now with . . . Irsay, and he’d be perfectly happy to drop about 60 points on the Colts Sunday night. Maybe 70.”⁴

His return to Indy pulled the highest local TV ratings in a decade, yielding a 71 percent share of the city’s televisions in both Indianapolis and Denver. Lucas Oil Stadium was a zoo, the fans beginning with intense ovations for Manning during a big-screen tribute, while Irsay, playing the nice guy, stood and cheered when Peyton took the field. Warming up on the sideline, Peyton removed his helmet, smiled, and waved. Luck called the vibe of the moment “rocking. The energy, you could taste it.”

The 6–0 Broncos were six-point favorites over the 4–2 Colts, and Peyton hit Decker from 17 yards out for the first score. But the Broncos were mistake-prone this day. After Manning’s second touchdown pass, to Julius Thomas, the Colts’ Robert Mathis smashed in and forced Manning to fumble out of the end zone for a safety. The crowd, even those wearing No. 18 jerseys, had quickly shifted their enthusiasm to Luck, who threw two touchdowns in succession to go ahead 26–14 and keep ahead, running one in as well. Manning’s TD pass to Demaryius Thomas and Moreno’s rushing touchdown cut the lead to 36–30. But late in the game, throwing under duress, he was intercepted. On the next possession, backup running back Ronnie Hillman fumbled at the Colts three. Manning outpassed Luck 386–228, and the Broncos outgained the Colts 365–213, but the rookie was the victor, 39–33.

Peyton trudged off his old home field, head down, and of course he played it humble, praising Luck, who would go 11–5, losing in the second playoff round to the Patriots, and be named second-team All-Pro behind Manning. Of the reception the fans gave him, Peyton said, “It’s something I’ll always remember, and I’m very grateful for that.” But this was a week he could have done without. The Colts’ punter, Pat McAfee, said, “I think he got emotional . . . and I think it got to him a little bit.”⁵ There was no doubt this one really hurt. The rest of the league would pay for that.

The Broncos rebounded by wrecking the Redskins 45–21, Manning completing 30 of 44 for 354 yards and four more touchdowns (albeit with three interceptions), while the other quarterback he’d been shoved aside for, Robert Griffin III, was yanked for Kirk Cousins. Denver would go 5–2 the rest of the season, with the beleaguered defense regrouping, giving up more than 30 just once—a brutal 34–30 overtime loss to the Patriots, in which they collapsed after leading 24–0 at the half, then mostly watched as Tom Brady threw three touchdowns and the Pats stormed back to win in overtime.

Otherwise, the beat went on, accentuated by a 51–28 mugging of the Titans. Not even the loss of their coach slowed them. Before the season, Fox had been diagnosed with aortic valve damage but put off surgery. During the bye week, he felt dizzy, and doctors told him to go under the knife right away. He was replaced by defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio, who had once coached the Jaguars, for the last eight regular-season games. On autopilot, the Broncos again closed at 13–3, with numbers prompting double-takes.

Mostly Manning’s. Two years after his career seemed moribund, all he did was break Brady’s single-season record with his 51st touchdown pass in the penultimate game. “I’m sure it’s just a temporary record,” he said, “but I will enjoy it.” Then, the next week, before which he already had 430 more yards and 16 more touchdowns than any other quarterback, he scorched the Raiders with four more, stretching the record to an unfathomable 55, which just might last as long as DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. He had racked up 5,477 yards—exactly one more than Brees’s record—and done it on 659 pass attempts, 20 fewer than his previous high, with only 10 interceptions. He completed 68.3 percent. He averaged 342 yards a game. His quarterback rating was 115.1. Yet, hardly forgotten, the running game, opened by defenses spooked by the pass, gained 100 yards in all but four games—and as many as 280 in the New England game. The Broncos notched a league-high 606 points, though they did give up a hefty 399.

Manning’s numbers more than earned him his fifth MVP and another first-team All-Pro designation. These honors began before the playoffs; another came when he finally made Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year, his grizzled face and wide forehead taking up most of the cover, the main picture inside of him in a jacket and tie, standing in the end zone, grimly gazing into the distance. He had a right to be introspective. The previous season’s promise had ended ingloriously, and some mavens were jaded about him. On one website, the former New York Times writer Mike Freeman noted that Manning had a 9–11 playoff record, and was 1–4 in divisional games at home. Not only was the blown game against the Pats “extremely Heimlich-y,” wrote Freeman, but “[i]f he’s eliminated early [again] his NFL epitaph will [be] ‘Here lies Manning’s NFL career. One of the best at generating statistics. One of the worst at winning big.’”⁶

He would have home-field advantage through the AFC rounds, and first up were the Chargers. The heavily favored Broncos’ running game did most of the damage, Moreno and Montee Ball gaining 134 yards between them, while Peyton only needed to throw for a modest 230 yards and two short touchdowns to Demaryius Thomas and Welker. The Broncos led 24–7 in the fourth quarter, sacked Philip Rivers four times, and won 24–17. Next came the AFC title game, one anticipated all season: the next big-game war with the hated Patriots, who, with yawning regularity, went 12–4. But Brady’s numbers had been ebbing over the past three seasons. His touchdowns fell to 25, his fewest since 2006, and his 87.3 passer rating was his lowest since ’08.

No one expected a defensive battle. And for one quarterback, the pickings were never easier. That quarterback was Peyton Manning, who came in having lost 10 of 14 games to Brady, and two of three in the playoffs, not that the numbers, or creeping age, mattered much. As one scribe wrote before the game in no less than Forbes— on whose annual Celebrity 100 list each quarterback had appeared four times—Manning versus Brady “is the greatest current individual rivalry in sports, and arguably up there with the ranks of Bird/Magic, Chrissie/Martina, Wilt/Russell and Ali/Frazier.”⁷

But this time, Manning was better, a lot better. Denver was favored by five points, and acted like it. Peyton toyed with the Pats’ cheesecloth defense, made even more vulnerable when Aqib Talib went down in the second quarter with a knee injury. Peyton used the short-to-medium passing game to control the ball—“We just couldn’t get off the field,” moaned Pats defensive end Andre Carter later—his goal-line scoring tosses to Jacob Tamme and Demaryius Thomas putting Denver up 20–3 at halftime. Despite two late New England touchdowns, they waltzed to a 26–16 victory—having laid 507 yards of offense on Belichick, 400 of them via Manning’s arm. In line with his surreal regular season, he completed 32 of 43 passes, his rating a shiny 118.4. Brady, of course, wasn’t bad, going 24 of 38 for 277 yards, but he needn’t have shown up on this day.

It was so one-sided that, for some, the game was a letdown, though clearly not in the Mannings’ VIP box, where, Sports Illustrated noted, “Archie, and brothers, Cooper and Eli [were] pogoing with joy.” SI hailed a “Manning at the peak of his powers. He was dictatorial in his approach . . . democratic in his rule . . . and efficient in his execution. And there wasn’t a damn thing the Pats could do about any of it.” Seeing it as a kind of exorcism for Manning, writer Andrew Lawrence posited that Peyton “has one more ghost to K.O.”⁸ That being himself—specifically, his self-doubts after his Super Bowl failures. If so, he seemed to have let skeptics like Freeman affect his swagger.

Archie may well have been speaking for his son when he found he had to stick up for a four-time MVP and past champion. “As a parent, I get tired of it,” he said with restrained anger afterward. “[W]hat’s he played in? Twenty-two postseason games? And he’s kind of being ridiculed. I mean, I played in zero postseason games. I can tell you a bunch of guys in my era, quarterbacks, buddies of mine—they’d love to say they played in 22 postseason games. My text count just hit 108 since the game’s ended. The last one I got is [from] Fran Tarkenton.”

While Fox and the other Broncos basked in the confetti streams and the fireworks detonating above the stadium, wearing AFC title caps and T-shirts, Lawrence said Peyton went through the ritual with “the frowning, furrow-browed expression that is as much a part of his persona as his nimble wit,” which the writer interpreted as “the face of frustration.” In the locker room, no more joyous, he was telling reporters, over and over, “There is still one more game to play.”

Playing in that game would make him the third starting quarterback to get to the big enchilada with two different teams, after Craig Morton and Kurt Warner. But the unknown known was that the NFC entry in Super Bowl XLVIII, played in Eli’s backyard, MetLife Stadium, on February 2, was the Seattle Seahawks, a team for years lost in near obscurity. Even a five-year playoff run in the early-to-mid-2000s and a losing trip to the Super Bowl in ’05 didn’t generate much fire. That is, until boyish-looking football lifer Pete Carroll—a human windup toy who had coached the Patriots in the ’90s, left his sinecure at USC to try again in the pros—took over the team in 2010. Two years later, they drafted a new-age quarterback, the smallish, eel-like Russell Wilson—who only a few years before had attended the Manning Academy—giving Carroll a leader who could run and throw, and throw while running, to go with brick-house fullback Marshawn Lynch.

In ’13, Wilson, at only 25, threw 26 touchdowns and ran for 539 yards. Lynch rumbled for 1,257 yards and 12 scores; both went to the Pro Bowl, aided to no end by the defense, coordinated by Dan Quinn. Ranked the best in the league, dubbed the Legion of Boom and the Angry Birds, they were No. 1 against the pass, No. 7 against the run, and No. 1 with 39 takeaways. The sine qua non was first-team All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman, a bug-eyed Stanford grad whose skills were often overshadowed by his loud mouth and brash behavior. The Seahawks figured they could disrupt all those Bronco crisscrossing patterns with their hybrid zone-man coverage, with Sherman and the other corner either inside or outside, interchanging with free safety Earl Thomas, another first-team All-Pro, and the strong safety, second-team All-Pro Kam Chancellor. One of their fleet linebackers would play midzone, and everyone was fast and smart enough to create double coverage at the point of most any pass.

The Vegas boys made the Broncos a two-point favorite, dragged down by the Manning big-game “choke” effect and the suspicion that his numbers had an inflated feel about them; and that, as Sherman said, “His passes will be accurate and on time, but he throws ducks.” Hearing that, Peyton grinned tightly and said, “I believe it to be true as well,” he said. “I’ve thrown a lot of yards and touchdowns with ducks. I’m actually quite proud of it.”⁹ Sherman also made the valid technical point that when Manning took the snap, “he doesn’t necessarily catch the laces all the time,” due to the numbness in his fingers. However, just as important was that two valuable Broncos, Von Miller and left tackle Ryan Clady, were out injured.

Though heavy snow was forecast for the New York area after the game, the day itself was an almost tropical 49 degrees, the wind calm. Yet, only 12 seconds into the game, the Broncos snapped the ball too soon, sending it over Manning’s right shoulder and rolling into the end zone where Moreno fell on it, a safety. “There’s no explanation for it,” center Manny Ramirez would say, and that went for the rest of a very long evening for the Broncos, during which, S. L. Price wrote in Sports Illustrated, “Manning never lost the harried, confused look of those first moments; the game once expected to be a career topper soon became a potential legacy mangler.”¹⁰

Rushed hard late in the first quarter, he overshot Julius Thomas and was intercepted by Chancellor; a few plays later, Lynch ran it in to make it 15–0. Late in the half, at the ’Hawks 35 and on a 16-play, eight-minute drive, he dropped back to pass. As he threw, his arm was clipped by defensive end Cliff Avril, the ball fluttered, and linebacker Malcolm Smith, the eventual game MVP, plucked it and ran 60 yards for a touchdown—yet one more crushing pick. That made the second half moot—especially when, again, just 12 seconds in, the ’Hawks returned the kickoff for a touchdown. Working under the deep zone, Peyton would end up completing 34 passes—a Super Bowl record—out of 49 attempts and a touchdown to Demaryius Thomas, who set a Super Bowl record with 13 catches. Manning’s 280 yards lifted him past Brady for all-time playoff passing yardage. But when the game ended at 43–8, he had taken the worst Super Bowl loss since 1990, when the Elway-led Broncos were pummeled by the 49ers 55–10. The Wilson kid, the second black quarterback to win the Super Bowl, the one with the $526,000 salary, threw one more touchdown than the aging, millionaire record holder.

The punishment over, Peyton sought out the winning quarterback and other players—on the field this time—and then repaired to the locker room. He said nothing as he peeled off his uniform and tape. He donned a suit, packed his bag, and slowly fulfilled his duty to answer questions at the press conference. “You can what-if all you want,” he said. “I don’t know if you ever get over it. It’s a difficult pill to swallow. You have to find a way to deal with it and process it, and if you can, you try and fuel it to make yourself a better team next year. Guys are disappointed. It takes some time.” Later, encountering the Denver Post’s Mark Kiszla, he had a simple missive. “I’m sorry,” he said. As Kiszla recalled it, “he spoke straight from the heart, as if [he] felt obligated to send a message to every, last Broncos fan.”¹¹

Sherman, who hurt his leg and ended the game on crutches on the sideline, said the ’Hawks defense had deciphered Manning’s hand signals. But he rhapsodized about the man he’d denigrated. Peyton, he said, had specifically sought him out after the game. “He was really concerned about my well-being. After a game like that, a guy who’s still classy enough to say ‘How are you doing?’ To show that kind of concern for an opponent shows a lot of humility and class.” Later, he tweeted, “He’s a Hall of Fame player, he’s a living legend, he’s a record-holding quarterback, he’s a Super Bowl champion.”¹² Yet most everyone else might have seconded Price’s rumination in SI: “Everyone knows that it’s never a one-man game, but you’ve got to wonder: Why doesn’t Peyton win more?” And even Archie seemed to have had his fill of these psychodramas ending in such pain. So tied in knots was he from watching Peyton being abused that he made his weary admission about how he hated this ulcer-maker called football.

The headlines in Denver were brutal—“Shame Won’t Disappear in Just 12 Seconds” sat atop Kiszla’s story in the Post, his game story leading with: “It took Peyton Manning 37 years to build a reputation as the best quarterback in NFL history, and only 12 seconds in the Super Bowl to fumble it away. Duck, Peyton.” Mike Klis added that “the Broncos suffered from a horrific case of stage fright. Jitters turned to panic. Panic leaked to disaster. Disaster became humiliation.” And Benjamin Hochman: “Sunday stunk. It was embarrassing, and I don’t care if Peyton Manning doesn’t like that word.” Now the question was whether Manning would be back again next year, or go out with his record-breaking season. Even the fans were split, one letter to the editor of the Post reading, “Dude, you’re kidding, right? What will it be like next season, when Manning is a year older and a year slower?”

Peyton kept repeating that he had no plans to retire, not exactly an emphatic answer. When last seen on that latest dreadful Sunday, after being consoled by the family, he was pushing his way past autograph hunters on the way to the team bus. At one point, he stopped and signed a few. Some in the small group threw some more questions at him, but he engaged none and quietly slipped onto the bus. The door closed behind him.

Most things Peyton Manning did now were framed by history. For instance, the season before, when he played in the Pro Bowl, the rules were bent so that Jeff Saturday, who was retiring after playing out his career in Green Bay, could cross sides and snap the ball one last time to Peyton, the sideline shouting match they’d had years before long forgotten. While retirement for Manning was entirely logical, his greatness and his ability to beat the odds and the laws of biology proven, at 38 he needed closure. He hadn’t worked his way back only to pack it in after a blowout soiled his legacy. Naturally, money was also in the equation. He had earned the second year of his tentative contract, and so he was prepared to reach down and take whatever he had left. But this was a Peyton Manning steadily, even precipitously, in decline from week to week, and easy to frustrate. During a preseason game with the Texans the next year, a scrub safety, D. J. Swearinger, knocked Welker out of the game with a concussion. On the next play, Manning threw a touchdown and violated his own protocol by taunting Swearinger, drawing the only fine of his career. His body, meanwhile, was breaking down, and he could be painful just to watch. However, what he had was enough most games.

The 2014 season would run much like the one before it, though the rarefied numbers were dialed back to merely great. To his good fortune, he wasn’t required to carry the team; the Broncos defense, with lock-down players at most positions—now including two high-profile free-agent acquisitions: Aqib Talib, who jumped the Patriots to sign for $57 million over six years, and 32-year-old outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware, the all-time Cowboys sack leader who signed for $30 million over three years—would set him up within smelling distance of the enemy goal line. Eleven Broncos would make All-Pro, five on defense and, across the line, Manning, both Thomases, Clady, second-year halfback C. J. Anderson, and the newest receiving gem, Emmanuel Sanders, who left the Steelers and signed as a free agent, replacing Decker, who signed with the Jets.

There was payback the very first week, when the Colts came in on Sunday night and, unlike the traumatic game in Indianapolis the previous year, Peyton made mincemeat of his old team’s defense. He fired three touchdowns in the second quarter—all to Julius Thomas—and had a 24–7 lead at the half. This time, Luck didn’t have any. Abused all day, sacked three times, he had to throw 57 times, gaining 370 yards (to Manning’s 269) with two touchdowns and two interceptions, closing the gap before losing 31–24. In the third game, the Broncos went to Seattle for a rematch with the Seahawks, and now it was Manning who had to claw his way back. The ’Hawks led 17–5 in the fourth quarter, but an interception set up a short touchdown pass to Julius Thomas. Then, after a field goal, Manning got the ball back on his own 20 with 59 seconds left, down 20–12. Slicing up the secondary, he got to the Seattle 26 with 24 seconds to go, then zipped one to Tamme for the touchdown. The two-point conversion sent it into overtime. However, the ’Hawks won the coin toss and moved right down the field, winning the game on a six-yard run by Lynch.

Still, Manning’s 303 passing yards against the team that would make it back to the Super Bowl that year showed he was in the groove. Winning five of the next six games, he and the Manning brand were purring, his jersey selling briskly, his cluttered “Omaha” cadences alone a major public curiosity. That season, ESPN thought it necessary to dispatch a crew to Omaha, Nebraska, to glean the reaction of the locals to the town’s new notoriety, and Omaha Steaks was doing peak business. As it was, the only real drama of the regular season was the latest match with the Patriots, in week nine.

Belichick’s team had started off slowly, some mavens wondering wistfully whether Brady was finished, but they evened out and were now 6–2, again seemingly beatable only with a stake in Brady’s heart under a full moon at midnight. Even on a blustery day in Foxborough, both quarterbacks went right to the pass and never stopped, Manning going 34 of 57 for 438 yards and two touchdowns, Brady 33 of 53 for 333 yards. The difference was that Brady hurled four touchdowns to Manning’s two, and one pick to Manning’s two. The second was off a muff by his receiver, but the first was a killer—into the teeth of a mid-depth zone right to linebacker Rob Ninkovich. The final score was 43–21, prompting Peter King to write that, in light of history, Belichick was “so far inside Peyton Manning’s head that he’s built a condo in there.”¹³

They were upset by the Rams in week 11, despite 389 yards from Peyton, who threw four more touchdowns in a win over the Dolphins. But now, dehydrated and hurting, he felt so poorly before a December game against the Chargers that he lay on a trainer’s table, hooked up to an IV drip, going through four bags of fluid. In that game, a 22–10 win, he threw for 233 yards but strained his right quad, partly because of dehydration, and came out late for his backup, Brock Osweiler. The next week, he passed for 311 yards and two touchdowns in a 47–28 loss to the Bengals. In the finale, he destroyed the Raiders with five touchdown passes in 14 minutes and 340 yards in a 41–17 rout, ending the regular season at 12–4. All this even as Archie grimaced, believing, he would say, “I’m not sure he should even have been playing.”¹⁴

His numbers were routinely glittering: 4,727 yards, 66.2 completion percentage, 39 touchdowns, a reasonable 15 interceptions, a 101.5 rating. The offense ranked fourth in the NFL. With the Bronco run defense a stone wall, teams passed like crazy, netting 29 touchdowns, but overall the defense was No. 3 in the league, those five All-Pros—Miller, Ware, Talib, strong safety T. J. Ward, and right cornerback Chris Harris—knotty and opportunistic. And when their first-round playoff game was played—with added drama, against the Colts—the oddsmakers made the Broncos seven-point favorites. However, Chuck Pagano knew that Manning’s painful thigh was still limiting him.

Hell, everything was. Manning was even telling people he would need a hip replacement one day, like many other old-timers. The films showed he had been getting less on the ball and was reluctant to throw his usually devastating slant passes—which, if he was even a centimeter off or a mile an hour slow, would be ripe for a pick. He took to throwing higher-percentage sideline passes, which were also risky, tempting a pick-six. Colts players tauntingly spoke of wanting to “put the game in Peyton Manning’s hands,” and even some in the Denver media were chary about him, having watched him labor through games even as he won them. Wrote Woody Paige, “Which Peyton will perform in the postseason? The Powerfully Persuasive Peyton or the painfully pitiful Peyton?”¹⁵ In Indianapolis, the misty tributes over, they were already looking past Manning to an even better future than he had given them in the past.¹⁶ Irsay, for his part, spoke smugly of “transition[ing] to the next level” and “the destiny of this franchise.” The halcyon era having begun with the replacement of Manning with Luck, he added blithely, with all of three years’ perspective, “the rest is history.”¹⁷

It seemed easy enough to put that history in its proper place when, on their first possession of the postseason, Peyton took the Broncos 68 yards, hitting Julius Thomas with a 32-yard laser, then finding Demaryius Thomas from the one-yard line for the early lead. But the Colts carried out their game plan well, holding the ground game in check and indeed taking their chances with Manning. They overplayed to the middle, predictably detouring his throws to the sidelines for manageable yardage. The Colts held the ball for nine more minutes, and even though Luck threw two interceptions and Manning none, the breaks went their way. In the second quarter, linebacker Jonathan Newsome sacked Peyton, causing him to fumble. Luck’s short scoring pass gave his team the lead, 14–7, and Manning was indeed pitiful. He went 26 of 46, but for a measly 211 yards, converting only 4 of 16 third downs. Luck, marginally better, had 265 yards and two touchdowns. Final score: 24–13.

As darkness fell over the Rockies, the writers had the long knives out. Mark Kiszla, who had lobbied the Broncos to stick with Tim Tebow instead of throwing Manning a life buoy, had seen enough of the old dog. “He’s done. Deep in his heart, Peyton Manning must know it. He’s done. NFL legends never die, but they often are cruelly required to slowly fade away. . . . Broncos fans [are] praying for a football miracle Manning can no longer deliver with any reliability. He’s done. Oh, Manning can return to the Broncos for the 2015 NFL season and gallantly give winning a championship another shot at age 39. But would it be a fool’s errand?”¹⁸ Patrick Saunders’s take was: “‘Orange Crush?! Really? How about Orange mush?’ Those angry, painful words sprang from the lips of [a] longtime Broncos season-ticket holder. [Luck] outplayed the Broncos’ Peyton Manning, who looked every bit like a 38-year-old quarterback.”¹⁹

Elway now had a decision to make about 2015, but before that, so did Peyton. Asked repeatedly if he would be back, he didn’t bother with a false front. “I guess I can’t just give that simple answer,” he said. “I’m processing it. So I can’t say that. I could not say that.”²⁰

John Fox would not have a choice. He was fired the next day and replaced by 46-year-old Gary Kubiak, the Ravens’ offensive coordinator and former coach of the Texans, who had been Elway’s backup quarterback for his entire nine-year playing career. Kubiak was committed to at least one more season of Manning, but the future, he believed, was Osweiler, the team’s second-round pick in 2012. A devotee of the West Coast offense, he saw Osweiler, a six-foot-seven, 235-pound telephone pole, as a good fit. Right after the season, Elway told Peyton to take his time deciding whether he would return, but applied the franchise tag to Demaryius Thomas, not Manning, and not Julius Thomas—who, with the Broncos in a budget-cutting mode, skipped out and signed as a free agent with the Jaguars. As a Denver Post headline saw it, the team was “Already Moving Past Peyton.”

What’s more, Peyton himself was again in what-to-do mode. Back in New Orleans, he had deep discussions with his family and his personal trainer, Mackie Shilstone. One factor he had to consider was learning a new offense yet again, since Kubiak was much more of a run-oriented guy. “It was pretty obvious they were going to change systems,” Archie said, “and that was going to be a big transition for him.”²¹ And yet, if anything, seeing Brady take home another title and Super Bowl MVP—thanks to Pete Carroll’s ill-fated, goal-line pass call—seemed to presage what was possible for him. Indeed, Brady restored some semblance of sanity to the notion that a new order was here by roughing up the Colts in the conference final, 45–7.

Once Manning indicated he was returning, Elway moved to accommodate him, but with a condition—the same one Peyton had had to accede to in Indianapolis: a pay cut. Condon could have played hardball, since on March 9 the Broncos would be contractually obligated to pay Peyton his full $19 million salary if he passed his physical. But again, Peyton was the good soldier. He agreed to take $15 million, with incentives that, if he won the AFC crown and the Super Bowl, would make back the $19 million.²² He would still be among the highest-paid quarterbacks, albeit behind the likes of well-paid lemons like Jay Cutler ($15.5 million)—but, astonishingly, still ahead of Brady, who would pull in just $13 million with incentives (but in 2016 would profit from a $28 million signing bonus).

Yet, even as he signed, and passed the physical, Peyton knew the score. He would turn 39 on March 24, and a fifth year at age 40 would be highly problematic. Just how obvious an issue this was for him was exhibited in August when, during court hearings in Tom Brady’s Deflategate saga, some of Brady’s emails came to light, one of which said, “I’ve got another 7 or 8 years. [Manning] has 2.” Brady immediately apologized to Peyton for it,²³ though in truth, he was a year too generous.