The Peyton Manning we knew is gone forever

Rumors of Peyton Manning’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, though not completely unwarranted.

For the second straight week, the man who will retire as the career leader in more than a dozen passing categories looked mostly ordinary, like an average quarterback who, now that he’s in his 40th year, has seen injury and Father Time finally catch up. After Denver lost to Kansas City, we were due 10 days of incessant questioning about how much Peyton Manning had left (it was going to get so bad that it would have made you long for Deflategate). And then the Denver Broncos got the ball back with 2:27 remaining in the game, needing 80 yards to force a tie with the division-rival Chiefs.

Manning didn’t look great on the drive. On the first play he connected with Emmanuel Sanders on a 22-yard pass, the team’s longest offensive play of the season. (In Manning’s three other seasons in Denver, a 22-yard play might be the third longest play in a specific series!) But that was followed by some rushed passes and misses of open receivers by yards, then inches. Overall, he was 5-10 on the drive, but it was the important ones that counted, including a beautiful pass to Demaryius Thomas on third-and-8 and the picture perfect touchdown strike to Emmanuel Sanders with 36 seconds remaining, a pass that should have sent the game to overtime, if not for the meddling of one Andy Reid.

There are worse things than playing relatively poorly in a division game on the road to a team with a 21-12 record over the past three seasons and a streak of preventing 300-yard passers stretching back to 2013. And few road teams do well in these wholly unnecessary Thursday night games. Regardless, this was Manning looking just okay for the second time in five days, something that has to be concerning even when you respond “yeah, but he played the Ravens defense and then a division game on short rest!”

Both are true, but some of the plays from Thursday can’t be explained away by excuses: Here’s a laundry list of moments that wouldn’t have looked out of place by a quarterback under center in Washington, Jacksonville or Houston:

• Manning often threw passes with a delivery that made him look like Tim Wakefield throwing a knuckleball, and with about as much juice.

• Open receivers were missed or, worse, unnoticed.

• Peyton threw one of his worst passes ever in Broncos orange in the first half, dumping a third-and-3 pass at midfield directly into the arms of a streaking Marcus Peter who took it to the house for a 55-yard touchdown that put the Broncos down 14-0, a score that immediately conjured memories of a similar Chiefs primetime beatdown of a future Hall of Famer.

• On a fourth-and-1 play in the first half, Manning couldn’t bark out the play in time, forcing him to call timeout. Only no one immediately heard the timeout, so the ball was snapped and the draw play worked. But that was negated when the timeout was given, so the Broncos tried again, calling an end around instead of keeping the ball in the hands of Manning. You can guess how it worked out.

• Remember the Peyton of old, the one who was famous for yelling “Omaha” at the line and conducting his 10 teammates like he was a football version of Leonard Bernstein? That was gone. There wasn’t nearly as much movement in the Broncos offense — it was sort of sad, like watching a Rolling Stones show in 2015 and seeing Mick taking breaks because, obviously, he’s no longer 25. For long stretches, the whole thing looked like amateur hour.

But, because Peyton not being Peyton is still better than most quarterbacks bringing their A game, Manning threw for three touchdowns and that one pick on 26/45 passing, 256 yards, a tiny 5.7 YPA, three sacks and a mediocre 86.9 rating.

A better Chiefs team wouldn’t have given Manning the opportunity to right the ship. The Chiefs did it at least three times. To their credit, the defense was attacking all game and Manning had little choice but to hold on to the ball or check into running plays when it was clear his offense was overmatched in facing Kansas City’s defensive sets. But a good performance, this was not. This was a defensive victory aided by some timely passes and pee-wee clock management by the home team.

Week 2 of 17 is way too early to make a determination about how things will pan out this year for Peyton Manning. For now, the 2-0 record gives him some leeway in how he’s going to handle his needed improvement. He’s going to have to figure out how to win without 100% of the talents that made him the greatest quarterback ever. The great ones adapt. Peyton has plenty of time to do so.

That’s the good news. So is this: Last year, Brady needed a blowout loss in Kansas City to regain his mojo. Manning was able to escape with the same lesson, but a W in his back pocket, Peyton Manning looked like he might have started down the path to getting his groove back — whatever’s left of it.



Source : http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/09/peyton-manning-stats-denver-broncos-win-2-0-not-as-good-numbers

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