Peyton Manning’s new image as a clutch performer and likable guy passed away Sunday evening after a brief, but ultimately futile, battle with the forces of nature. It was three years old.
Since entering professional football as the top pick of the NFL Draft in 1998, Manning was seen as the heir apparent to Hall of Fame quarterbacks like Dan Marino and John Elway, and delivered on his promise with outstanding statistics in only his second season. Despite his amazing numbers, he was never able to bring the Indianapolis Colts over the hump to a championship, usually stopped cold by the New England Patriots in the playoffs. During this time in his career, he was known as a fantastic passer who could be rattled by early contact and/or pressure from the opposing defense which would in turn cause him to tap dance with greater frequency and fervor than Fred Astaire on an angel dust crank speedball. His favorite go-to play in these circumstances would be to wing the ball towards his runningback in the flat who would then be knocked flat by a linebacker who’d been chugging at full steam before the ball was even released. How this didn’t result in a team mutiny over Manning hanging his teammates out to dry is unknown.
Beginning the 2007, something odd began happening as Peyton seemed less concerned with his stats and more focused on winning games. This, combined with an odd aberration wherein the Colts’ defense somehow became infected with the “We Now Know How To Play Run Defense” virus in the playoffs, resulted in Peyton’s first appearance in a Super Bowl. In another epic stroke of luck, Indianapolis was facing off against the Chicago Bears, whose coach, Lovie Smith, apparently downloaded any knowledge of how to coach defense against superstar NFL players out of his brain after taking his new position. Manning proceeded to pick apart the Bears’ defense with short passes in the middle of a rainstorm en route to a Lombardi Trophy. This was the point at which public sentiment seemed to turn in favor of Manning, whose past faux pas were forgotten amidst his newly-minted championship.
Since that time, Manning was given a huge amount of respect as quite possibly the game’s greatest quarterback – a movement greatly aided by the faultering New England Patriots and a season-long injury to Tom Brady, Manning’s main competition in the league for top QB honors. Entering the 2009 season, he’d become a figure who was respected even by the people who has previously detested his very existence – as witnessed by none other than Bill Simmons saying he no longer hated Manning and had nothing but respect for the guy.
However, Manning’s image took a turn for the worst Sunday night during his second Super Bowl appearance against the New Orleans Saints. With a raucous partisan Saints crowd in attendance, the Colts found themselves trailing in a close game in the fourth quarter. Peyton marched the team down the field, bringing many fans to the conclusion that yet another fourth quarter comeback was now inevitable. That all ended when Manning made perhaps the worst throw of his career and was intercepted by Tracey Porter, who then took the INT all the way back for a back-breaking touchdown. Manning then walked off the field after the game without shaking hands with his opponent, Drew Brees, or anyone else for that matter proving that once and for all he is merely a cheap punk at heart.
Despite this revelation, there are still those who defend Manning, in spite of the fact most any other player or coach would’ve been all but burned at the stake for this kind of poor sportsmanship. Colts GM Bill Polian even went so far as to blame the game’s outcome on the offensive line (a favorite scapegoat for Manning in the past) and special teams – neither of whom performed particularly well, but who also had nothing to do with throwing the football directly into the chest of Porter on the game’s most decisive play.
Manning’s new image is survived by several thousand commercials he made over his career during which he was willing to whore just about any product a company would put in front of him.
