by Mark Kiszla
“Nobody loves their job more than I do. Nobody loves playing quarterback more than I do. I still want to play. But there is no other team I wanted to play for,” confessed Manning, who stubbornly—and perhaps naively—believed the Colts would find a way to keep him until 24 hours before fighting back tears as his release was announced with Irsay at his side. “I guess, in life and in sports, we all know nothing lasts forever. Times change, circumstances change, and that’s the reality of playing in the NFL.”
And the reality is: The hurt might turn into a dull ache, but in a country where a man’s self-worth is often defined by day after day of the blood, sweat, and tears he puts into a job, a termination notice is as permanent as a tattoo.
Slowly unwinding after his final game of his first season as Broncos quarterback, Manning pulled off his dirty socks in the sparse locker room of Aloha Stadium and sat alongside Luck, cracking wise about the questionable music tastes of teammates on the AFC all-star roster, as if the rookie quarterback and the man he pushed out of Indianapolis had been friends for years. Harbor bitterness for Luck? No way. Resenting Luck would be a sloppy manifestation of Manning’s pain.
Manning is the son of Archie, the brother of Eli. Dad suffered as the QB of hapless New Orleans, where he went 1-15 with the Saints in 1980. Baby brother takes the heat of playing for the Giants in New York. Having grown up in the America’s first family of quarterbacks, Manning has too much respect for the job to hate anybody who does it.
“I’ve always believed NFL quarterbacks were an elite fraternity. Unless you are an NFL quarterback, you really don’t know what it’s like,” he said.
As he stood up to say good-bye to Luck and head to the shower, however, Manning took a slight detour. He stopped with a purpose in the middle of the locker room, grabbing my attention with the quiet urgency of words too important to be left unsaid. Something about his comments on the field 20 minutes earlier didn’t sit right with Manning. Polite to a fault, Manning did not want to sound brusque in the dismissal of seeing Luck in a Colts helmet. But, far more revealing, Manning did not want his curt answer to be misinterpreted. Anyone who deals with Manning quickly learns he is more fastidiously precise than a Swiss watch, and the wheel whirring inside his brain never sleeps.
“Hey, I wanted to explain something to you,” said Manning, his voice as light and friendly as the touch of his hand above my right elbow. “All my great memories of Indianapolis will be forever. But I’ve stored them all away. Like in a time capsule. You know what I mean?”
The admission was startling. Every smile Manning ever made in Indianapolis is sealed in bubble wrap, not to be touched: His first NFL touchdown pass to Marvin Harrison as a rookie in 1998; the playoff perfection on an otherworldly quarterback rating of 158.3 in the 41–10 dismantling of the Broncos in January 2004; beating the Chicago Bears in the rain to win Super Bowl XLI.
When Manning was released by the franchise he defined, the headlines and television scrolls were unavoidable. He was standing right there, three feet from the spot where Irsay approached a microphone and emotionally told a press conference in Indianapolis: “It’s a difficult day here of shared pain between Peyton, myself, the fans, everyone. In that vein, the 18 jersey will never be worn again by a Colt on the field.” Seeking closure, Manning put aside an hour for 30 Indy staffers, from secretaries to equipment guys, so there was time for proper good-byes. The quarterback went home and talked with Ashley, his wife, about the strange turns life can take.
But, after all that, Manning was as numb as a zombie, unable to fully comprehend what had happened. Legends don’t get cut. So Manning locked it all away, all the happy memories in safekeeping for another day far down the road.
“I had 14 terrific years in Indianapolis. Nothing ever can or ever will change that,” Manning said. “But every memory I have from there is locked in a time capsule. It’s locked in. I don’t take those memories out.”
Manning still loves the Colts. How could he not? He will always love the Colts. “He’s always part of the horseshoe,” Irsay insisted.
But have you ever been dumped by the love of your life? You hide the photographs. The heartache is too raw. You put the pictures away in the closet, because it is impossible to get anywhere in the future when you’re lost in the past. Bitterness is a disease of regret. Refusing to look back, Manning chased a breath of fresh air.
“This is the next chapter of my football career, here in Denver. That’s what and how I live day to day,” Manning said. “Once I stop playing, I’ll finally go back and combine both chapters in my head. But when you’re living your next chapter, it’s hard to look back. That’s the way I’ve got to look it at. That’s what works best for me.”
Across the country, the Manning who is welcomed into our homes comes knocking with an easy charm and down-home humor. In commercials, Manning is the guy who drives a Buick to a barbecue at his father’s house or roots for the neighborhood butcher with the chant: “Cut that meat!”
Here is the beautiful disguise: With his southern drawl and slouched shoulder, Manning is to be the quarterback next door. He could be your neighbor, provided your neighbor was a borderline obsessive-compulsive neatnik. Oh, in person, during life’s silly moments, Manning can be as genuinely funny as a Saturday Night Live skit. But in a Twitterverse where personal communication is often a 140-character snark attack, Manning possesses the white tablecloth manners that would do any mother proud. The first time we formally met at Broncos headquarters, a quarterback with more than 50,000 yards on his NFL resume extended a handshake and said: “Hi, I’m Peyton Manning.”
Hey, I knew that. But what it did not take long to discover: There is little about Manning that could be considered remotely spontaneous. He is a perfectionist, working from a script 24/7. In his perfect world, there are zero surprises. Yep, Manning gets lost on a trip to the barber in a new town. And it drives him nuts. But give Manning this: Rather than driving around in circles, he is the rare guy who is not afraid to bury the testosterone, swallow the pride, and call his wife to ask for directions.
Has any quarterback ever controlled the chaos of the game more efficiently than Manning, whether the task is calling an audible at the line of scrimmage or calling the shots while picking a new employer? Manning likes everything in his world to fit as comfortably as a pair of old jeans. He craves familiarity. So, in the end, maybe it is not such a big mystery why Manning picked Denver.
Elway knew what it was like to be a 36-year-old QB who craved another shot at the Super Bowl. Colorado Rockies first baseman Todd Helton, a friend since their college days at Tennessee, had opened the National League baseball team’s workout facilities during Manning’s rehab. Former Indy teammate Brandon Stokley lived in suburban Denver and gave more convincing reasons for why this was God’s country than a $1 million Chamber of Commerce campaign ever could.
Go ahead. Try to name 10 quarterbacks in NFL history with a slicker resume than Manning. While you are stuck on the list somewhere between Joe Montana and Johnny Unitas, we will race back down the timeline to what tennis star Andy Roddick tweeted back on that fateful day when Irsay dumped Manning for a younger, sexier quarterback:
“The Colts cutting Peyton feels like the North Pole kicking out Santa.”
Success, of course, is the best revenge.
In his debut season as quarterback in Denver, Manning threw 37 touchdown passes. He made the city forget Tim Tebow, whose controversial mix of football and religion had divided Broncos Country into devout believers and unholy doubters. With a 13-3 record and a first-place finish in the American Football Conference’s West Division, Manning led Denver to its most regular-season victories since 2005.
But loyalty is platinum, silver, and gold to Manning. Pulling on a Broncos uniform was much harder than Manning made it look. It was never easy being orange, after 14 years of wearing Indianapolis blue. Pain is what pushed Manning to be an All-Pro quarterback for the Broncos, pain as real as the hurt in his voice when he
was forced to say good-bye to Indy: “I will always be a Colt. I always will be. That will never change.”
The cut went deep, straight to the core of Manning’s very identity as an athlete who was always in control.
Yes, football heroes bleed when cut.
The scars go on forever.
Determined to make the most of what remains of his football life, Manning set aside the pain and turned the page, to chapter 2.
Chapter 2
No Plan B
This was a marriage born of desperation.
In shocked disbelief after the Colts had dumped him, Manning was on the rebound, looking for a new NFL team to love.
Broncos owner Pat Bowlen had endured 13 long years since his last NFL championship, and, at age 67, Bowlen could not count on waiting another 13 years to get back on top as a viable option.
With his folksy humor, coach John Fox does not seem to sweat the small stuff. But every loss leaves a scar for the author of a game plan. When Fox signed a four-year, $13 million contract to become the 14th head coach in Broncos history, it figured to give him enough money to make retirement sound tempting after the deal ran its course.
As executive vice president of football operations, Elway was the leader of Broncos Country, divided by the Tim Tebow dilemma, with the young quarterback’s believers and detractors too often arguing about sports and religion rather than wins and losses.
Exhibiting the patience to wait for Tebow to grow up as an NFL quarterback would have been a laudable exercise. But the movers and shakers at Dove Valley were not in the mood to be patient. Bowlen, Fox, and Elway all felt the clock ticking. They wanted a big score. And they wanted it now.
“My goal is to make Peyton Manning the best quarterback to ever play the game,” Elway declared as he proudly presented his new quarterback to Denver on March 20, 2012. “And he’s got that ability with the football he’s got left.”
The goal for Manning was audacious: Better than Tom Brady. Better than Joe Montana. Better than Elway himself.
History suggested Elway’s goal was crazy impossible. The greatness of a quarterback is always measured in championships. Elway undoubtedly recalled that he never won a championship until age 37, and won the Super Bowl a second time as a grizzled 38-year-old veteran, when the Broncos routed Atlanta 34–19 on the final night of January 1999.
But in all the years since Elway retired, every quarterback who has won a Super Bowl, from Tom Brady to Brett Favre, was younger when lifting the Lombardi Trophy than the 35 years and 361 days that Manning had been on this earth when he officially became a member of the Broncos.
On the Tuesday afternoon Manning was introduced to Denver, after every imaginable question was exhausted by media members who occupied every last seat in a huge theater at the team’s headquarters, Elway was asked one more thing, almost as an afterthought in that awkward, out-of-gas moment at every big event when it seems like time to go, but nobody wants to be the first to put on a coat and leave.
Lisa Snyder, host of a weekend show on Mile High Sports Radio, wanted to know if Elway had a fallback position in the event Manning turned down this offer to join the Broncos. The question was beautiful in its simplicity, going directly to the heart of Elway’s anxiety as he waited to hear Manning’s decision on whether he would continue his football career in Denver . . . or San Francisco . . . or Nashville, Tennessee. Had Elway been spurned, was there a Plan B?
“Plan B?” replied Elway. A look of utter disbelief filled his blue eyes to the brim. He shook his head. His mouth fell open, as if it were impossible for Denver’s hero of The Drive and 46 other late-game comebacks to fathom defeat.
“We don’t have a Plan B,” said Elway. Laughter filled the room, and his trademark toothy grin brightened Elway’s face as he thought of the exclamation point to put on the Manning signing: “We’re going [with] Plan A!”
The line was so perfect it made even a jaded newspaper hack break into spontaneous applause. And the line was so very Elway, the words so bold they swaggered coming off his lips.
Sure, Manning was the player recovering from physical ailments, a veteran struggling to regain his passing touch. “It’s not where I want it to be,” Manning admitted. “I want it to be where I was before I was injured. There’s a lot of work to do to get where we want to be from a health standpoint.”
Make no mistake, though. It was Elway’s neck on the line. He was all in, pushing the chips to the center of the table, gambling his reputation and the franchise’s future that Manning could play like an MVP again. It was Manning or bust. But what football executive in his right mind would be so crazy optimistic to expect damaged goods to replicate the forty-nine touchdown passes and 4,557 yards that Manning produced back in 2004?
More than 65 percent of respondents to a Denver Post poll gave a huge thumbs-up to the Broncos’ pursuit of Manning. Outside the walls of Dove Valley, however, there was loud grousing from the other 35 percent, an extremely vocal minority that insisted Elway had thrown away the trust of paying customers who had invested emotionally and financially, to the tune of $79.95 replica jerseys, in Tebow.
After declaring that Tebow had earned the right to be the starting quarterback when the Broncos opened training camp in the summer of 2012, Elway was being called a liar—and worse four-letter words—by fans that felt betrayed. The sense of betrayal among Tebow supporters would not be as easy to erase as removing photographs of the young quarterback from the walls at team headquarters.
“The acquisition of Peyton Manning is the worst day of my life where the Broncos are concerned,” said David Burns, a fan from Craig, a beautiful little town in the far northwestern corner of Colorado, where you can awake to the bugle call of elk. “I’m sure Manning’s a great guy and a wonderful human being, but I can’t forget how he has humiliated the Broncos during his tenure with the Colts. I’ve referred to him numerous times as the Broncos Killer, and Peyton landing in Denver is just despicable and weird. Some things are unnatural. Peyton in orange and blue is that to me.”
Tebow had the uncanny ability to transform even the most cynical spectator in the stadium into a Little League parent. Bless their hearts, but all Little League parents grow very defensive when the criticism strikes too close to home.
That’s why Burns spoke for tens of thousands of people who threw their arms around Tebow and adopted him as Colorado’s favorite son: “I told my best friend we had waited 14 years for a quarterback to excite the stadium like the old days. We found that quarterback in Tim Tebow. Management has handled Tim with such disrespect, disgrace, and disregard that it feels like a punch to the gut. I know I am not the only fan who recognizes this truth: John Elway said Tebow would be the quarterback going into camp. When that doesn’t happen, you know what that makes the Broncos’ vice president of football operations?”
How do you tell a nine-year-old boy his football hero has been demoted? In the eyes of a child, a Tebow poster on the bedroom wall is a shrine. That number 15 jersey can’t be tossed to the back of the closet, discarded like a broken toy. Football is not business to a kid. It’s all heart. And hearts break.
The illusion of sports is never richer than when you are nine years old, as Kyle Nowak was when his father shattered the illusion with the harsh truth. “Kyle, did you hear?” Neil Nowak said. “Eli Manning’s older, physically disabled, overpriced and overhyped brother will be taking the fan-favorite, playing-winning Tim Tebow’s position on the Broncos. It will be a great two games in the season, and Peyton will be in the hospital, earning his $90 million-plus, while Tebow will be in some other city, taking that team to the playoffs.”
When I told Elway that story, the old quarterback cringed, as if preparing his body for a hit that would leave a mark.
“You hate some decisions you have to make in football. But that doesn’t prevent you from making them. You do what’s best for your team. But that doesn’t take away the heartache. You’re dealing with human beings. It hurts,” Elway told me afte
r the press conference to introduce Manning broke up.
Of all people, Elway understands how a quarterback who wins for the Broncos is embraced like a member of the family in Denver. Elway was throwing Tebow out of the house. We like to paint sports heroes as 10 feet tall and bulletproof. When calling Tebow to tell him of the Broncos’ change in direction, the pain in Elway’s eyes was genuine.
“I don’t want to alienate people to the Denver Broncos,” Elway said. “People may disagree with me. But the thing they need to know is it does bother me when I see these people want to run me out of town. Obviously, that bothers me a little bit. You never get used to that.”
There is the football fanatic who paints his face orange and blue on NFL Sunday afternoons. But that obsession with the Broncos paled in comparison to the religious zealots who faithfully believed Tebow was God’s quarterback. Elway is a football god in Denver. But as big or powerful as John 3:16 to Tebow disciples? Heavens no, and arguing otherwise was decried as blasphemy.
As a quarterback who won two national championships and the Heisman Trophy at the University of Florida, the football field was Tebow’s bully pulpit. Tebow reached out and touched the unwashed masses by painting Bible verses on eye black patches he carefully selected and wore on game day. Prior to the Senior Bowl, where professional scouts hotly debated his throwing mechanics, Tebow wrote “James 1:2–4” on his eye black as a message to his doubters: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
It takes more than faith, however, to throw a tight spiral into zone coverage. Regardless of how hard he tried or how long after practice he stayed, Tebow lacked the skill set to beat NFL teams consistently from the pocket in a pass-happy league.