Peyton Manning

by Mark Kiszla

  Even after Tebow caused grown men to cry with joy at the sight of an overtime victory in the playoffs against Pittsburgh in January, Elway was not a convert, despite the hallelujahs echoing nationwide in praise of God’s quarterback. On the night Tebow stunned the Steelers with an 80-yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas on the first snap of overtime, true believer Jonathan Cannon snapped a photograph of an oil-on-canvas-worthy sunset as he entered a pub in Charleston, South Carolina, to watch the Broncos game. The sunset, painted in vivid hues of orange and blue, “took my breath away, and I immediately praised the Lord! Then I thought: ‘Hmm, Father, are you going to be up to something wild today in Denver, with a David versus Goliath moment?’” Cannon told me. “Then . . . bam! Tebow and the Broncos pulled out another wild one! This does remind me of how many times through my life and history, God shows up when the impossible is needed against all odds. So many times we just write off the unusual occurrence as coincidental, when, in reality, God orchestrated it to reveal Himself and His Glory!”

  With the same impeccable instincts that allowed him to dodge pressure on the football field, Elway inherently understood die-hard Tebow fanatics would never sit quietly as the young quarterback served a lengthy apprenticeship to Manning. Football executives who stand in God’s way are condemned as heathens. There was a split in Broncos Country. Within 72 hours after Manning was issued a Denver uniform, Tebow got traded, so the healing could begin.

  “It was a tough situation,” Elway told Lindsay H. Jones of USA Today. “There are Tebow fans and there are Broncos fans. My responsibility is to the Broncos fans, and my responsibility is to Pat Bowlen and what he wants to do, and that’s win championships. I base all my decisions on that. It’s difficult not to get personal, because every kid that comes in, it’s his dream to play. But the bottom line is: My responsibility that Pat’s given me is to give him the best opportunity to hoist that trophy.”

  Pat Robertson was one of those zealots on the topic of Tebow. On television, he chided the Broncos for their risky investment in Manning.

  “OK, so Peyton Manning was a tremendous MVP quarterback, but he’s been injured,” said Robertson, arguing his case to a 700 Club audience that would naturally be sympathetic to poor, pitiful Tebow being cast into the wilderness by the Broncos. “If that injury comes back, Denver will find itself without a quarterback. And, in my opinion, it would serve them right.”

  It would serve them right? What in the name of sweet Jesus was Robertson suggesting?

  It sounded as if the Broncos would not only have to turn back San Diego, Oakland, and Kansas City to win the AFC West, but also dodge the wrath of God. Every time he took a snap, Manning already was putting his surgically repaired neck on the line, risking damage from a blindside shot by Houston defensive lineman J. J. Watt or a safety blitz by Bernard Pollard of Baltimore. Did Manning also need to beware the possibility of a stack of Bibles falling on his head?

  Robertson’s tirade, which seemed to openly question a football decision by the Broncos on moral grounds, was so blistering that 700 Club co-host Terry Meeuwsen could respond on-air with only a single word of pious outrage. “Well!” she harrumphed, her reply as forceful as an “Amen!” to Robertson’s football sermon. Was Robertson truly miffed because the Broncos defied God’s will? A spokesperson for the Christian Broadcasting Network tried to put a Band-Aid on the raw feelings, with this statement: “Dr. Robertson is in no way advocating an injury to Peyton Manning, who he regards as a tremendous MVP quarterback.”

  An impossible question to answer remained: If Tebow was actually God’s quarterback, why would he not be closer to perfect than his lousy 46.5 completion percentage while making throws during his 2012 season in Denver?

  The subject of Tebow caused Manning to gaze at his shoes when he joined the Broncos. The truth hurt. Manning knew the pain of being told by the Colts to get lost. He genuinely despised taking a fellow quarterback’s job.

  “I know there are great fans of the Denver Broncos. And a lot of times they’re fans of the quarterback. There are great reasons for them to be fans of Tim. There’s what a great guy he is and what he did (for the team). I’m in the quarterback fraternity,” Manning said. The truth was: He hated the prospect of taking the job of a fraternity brother. For Manning, it was the worst part of his recruiting process as an NFL free agent, knowing that if he signed with Tennessee, quarterback Matt Hasselbeck would probably lose his job, or if Manning joined San Francisco, the 49ers might well decide to trade Alex Smith. “But I wanted to go play somewhere else,” Manning said. “I don’t know there was any easy way to do this.”

  Manning was no Mile High Messiah. But he was big enough to silence Tebowmaniacs. When number 18 jogged onto the field at 8:44 AM for his first practice at training camp on July 26, 2012, you would have thought Bruce Springsteen had taken the stage. “Everybody’s here to see Manning,” Maxwell Totten of Littleton said. “Everybody knows this is our Super Bowl team.” The rowdy crowd of 4,372 spectators, who started to form a line outside the gates before sunrise and set a single-day record for Broncos summer camp, saluted the new quarterback in town with chants of “Manning, Manning, Manning.”

  Some would argue Tebowmania was buried that summer day.

  In a football town spoiled by the success of Elway, however, there’s only one way for a quarterback to earn respect: Win. It took Manning a while to get warmed up, as whispers grew his arm wasn’t right and he might not be worth $18 million per year.

  Denver had been warned, by none other than Broncos coach John Fox, that it was going to be a long, bumpy ride to the playoffs. “I’ve been of the school of understate, overproduce,” Fox repeated until he was hoarse, in the weeks leading to Manning’s regular-season debut. “We’re obviously pleased to have Peyton, yet we’re still trying to get ready as a football team, and we’re definitely not there yet.” The Broncos required the one thing nobody wanted to hear about: Patience. It required a clutch 43-yard interception return for a touchdown for Denver to seal a victory in the final two minutes of the home-opener. The stumblebum Oakland Raiders graciously gave Manning what amounted to an early bye week that also counted as a W in the standings.

  Dissension crept into the ranks of paying customers in Section 505 of Sports Authority Field as early as September 23, when the Houston Texans came to town and won 31–25. From the nosebleed seats, the cascade of booing rained early on a sunny afternoon. As the approval rating of Manning began to slip, the crowd was so lifeless during much of the second half that the only sound to be heard from the upper deck was a lone protester mournfully crying, “Tee-Bow! Tee-Bow!”

  During the final moments of a 27–21 loss in Atlanta, rookie quarterback Brock Osweiler had been spotted warming up near the Broncos bench. Gossip ensued. “I was going in for the Hail Mary,” Osweiler told Mike Klis of the Denver Post. The Falcons, however, saved John Fox from the delicate situation of yanking his Hall of Fame quarterback by running out the clock on the back of Michael Turner.

  After getting run over by a red, white, and blue bus driven by New England quarterback Tom Brady, Denver owned a 2-3 record. “They move at NASCAR speed,” said linebacker Joe Mays, after eating the Patriots’ dust during a 31-21 loss. Added cornerback Champ Bailey: “Right now, we aren’t good enough.”

  The moment of crisis arrived early in the Manning era.

  And then the situation got worse.

  On the road in San Diego, facing what Manning called a must win, the Broncos fell behind 24–0 at halftime.

  But what happened next will be remembered for decades in the future, when white-haired men grab a tattered number 18 jersey from the attic, gather grandkids around the fire, and tell tall tales from the night when Peyton Manning officially became a Broncos legend.

  “I’ve never seen a football game turn on such a big wave,” said Bailey, after Denver scored five straight touchdowns, all in the last 30 minutes of the contest, to stun the Chargers 35–24 as the NFL world watched on Monday Night
Football.

  It was stunningly beautiful. Stunning because the Broncos appeared clueless while falling behind 24 points in the opening half. The mindless offensive game plan seemed as if it was borrowed from the Tebow era. A failure to communicate between Denver receiver Matthew Willis and Manning resulted in an embarrassing interception returned 80 yards for a San Diego touchdown. On what appeared to be a certain six points for the Broncos, Eric Decker tripped over a blade of grass on his way to the end zone.

  “It was no mystery words of wisdom at halftime,” Fox said.

  When your QB is PFM, panic is not part of the vocabulary. “You can never count that guy out,” Broncos receiver Brandon Stokley said. “Everybody in this locker room knows, and we all believe, that when you have him behind center, we can come back from any deficit.”

  In all his glory, Tebow never created a greater football miracle. But this was not a miracle. Miracles are not sustainable. Talent endures. Manning has something Tebow does not: Hall of Fame ability. Elway, the king of all Denver comebacks, never was part of a more improbable victory. During the second half, Manning was the picture of near-perfection, while completing 13 of 14 passes.

  “I’m in shock right now that we just did that,” Broncos defensive tackle Justin Bannan admitted to Mike Klis of the Denver Post after a comeback for the ages was in the books. “I’m just glad I was part of it. That’s one you will remember forever.”

  The weird, wacky turn of events began with an Elvis sighting. Broncos defensive end Elvis Dumervil, who had struggled during the early season to justify his $14 million salary, turned the momentum by stripping the football from San Diego quarterback Philip Rivers late in the third quarter, with the visitors trailing by 17 points. The fumble was scooped up and returned 65 yards for a score by defensive back Tony Carter.

  “That’s the play we had to have to make a comeback,” said Manning, downplaying his contribution, which included three touchdown passes, the most important a 29-yard strike to Thomas on Denver’s opening possession of the third quarter. A 21-yard throw and spectacular catch by Stokley put Denver ahead 28–24 with nine minutes, three seconds remaining in the final period.

  On an evening when the Broncos were on the verge of being run out of the AFC West division race and straight into the Pacific Ocean, they emerged with as much inner confidence as any team with a 3-3 record could possibly possess. Recent rallies that had sputtered in the end against Atlanta, Houston, and New England were forgotten. A feeling of invincibility took seed, and would blossom with each passing week, as the winning streak got on a roll.

  The Broncos had PFM on their side. “We unraveled,” Rivers said. In one night, the momentum of the season and the course of history in the AFC West changed forever. The Chargers were clinging to a glorious past already gone. Denver posted first notice it was ready to rejoin the league elite.

  Outside the press box after game’s end, as reporters scurried to the locker rooms, chasing quotes against deadline, and the Monday Night Football crew began breaking down all the apparatus of its dazzling television circus, there was chaos at the entrance to the elevator that served the upper reaches of the stadium.

  A team of emergency medical technicians talked with urgency, wheeling a gurney through the elevator doors. An expectant mother who had attended the game was out in the parking lot, going into labor. Oh, baby.

  Mention of an impending birth immediately brings a smile of recognition to any father who has experienced the blood-pressure spike on delivery day. There is no cheering in the press box, but everybody takes a rooting interest for a child entering the world. Ink-stained wretches and celebrity broadcasters alike gladly made room for the medical personnel to hop on the elevator.

  Included in the impromptu cheering section were Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden, the announcers who had told a nationwide ESPN audience every thrilling detail from the biggest rally in Manning’s illustrious career and the biggest comeback since the NFL started playing games on Monday night in 1970.

  “Whether it’s a boy or a girl,” Tirico called out to the EMTs, wishing them Godspeed, “that baby should be named Peyton.”

  The hot list of baby names changes every year. In with the new, out with the old.

  On the Broncos’ charter flight back home, Tebowmania died, with the ashes scattered somewhere over the Rocky Mountains.

  Chapter 7

  Old No. 7

  Nothing sticks to the memory like a song. And the Academy Award for stickiest song in movie history goes to: the theme from Ghostbusters.

  That song is engraved in the head of Broncomaniacs, impossible to erase and forever linked to a special time. But, in Denver, the tune is not identified so much with green slime and Bill Murray as it is with new cars and a famous quarterback. The most played song of the 1990s in Colorado had to be the Ghostbusters theme, rewritten and recast as a commercial jingle for number 7’s automobile empire.

  Who you gonna call?

  John Elway!

  Long before he became a world champion, Elway was king of the road.

  In 1993, Elway sold more than 7,500 Hondas, Oldsmobiles, Toyotas, Hyundais, and Mazdas. That year alone, dealerships carrying the Elway badge grossed nearly $130 million.

  Somehow, it figures that Elway, the fastest gunslinger in the West, would never blink in business, whether crashing and burning as a partner with Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky in an e-commerce sports equipment venture, or selling his stake in car dealerships for a cool $80 million.

  “You know, John Elway told me one time why he loved the car business,” said Jim Saccomano, the team’s longtime public relations director, known and revered throughout the NFL as Sacco. Saccomano’s work shaping the Broncos’ image as an elite franchise was every bit as masterful as the best game plans devised by coach Mike Shanahan.

  Saccomano can spin a compelling yarn like you used to hear back in the day, while sitting around a campfire. “Love the car business? Really? I mean, this guy’s a quarterback,” Sacco said, hooking his listener. “So I asked John why he loved it. And his response was straight to the point: The tote board.”

  The tote board?

  Inside the sales offices of every car dealership, there is an accounting of what cars are moving off the lot, who is selling them, and whether quotas for the week, month, or year are being made. No nonsense. Dollars separate the winners from losers on your automobile team.

  Scoreboard, baby.

  “Yes, there is a scoreboard. And you keep score every day,” Elway said. “That’s exactly why I do like the car business. You’ve got goals, and there’s a scoreboard that tells you whether you won or lost.”

  Elway always has his eyes on the scoreboard, because he is hooked on competition. Seek a cure for this lifelong addiction to winning? Or slow down in middle age? No way. Elway could live comfortably off his fame. But Elway lives for the next game.

  No wonder he wept without shame when announcing his retirement from the Broncos on May 2, 1999, fresh off being the grand marshal of a second Super Bowl parade in two seasons. Love hurts, and breaking up is hard to do.

  In the opening statement during the retirement ceremony, Broncos owner Pat Bowlen broke the tension with an anecdote. With a sense for the dramatic, Bowlen revealed details of the last supper before Elway hung up his football cleats and walked away from a brilliant 16-year NFL career.

  “John went downtown to have dinner with some of his teammates at a well-known restaurant that shall remain nameless. There was no parking around the restaurant. But there was a stall there that said nobody can park here. Except John Elway, I guess,” Bowlen told family members, friends, teammates, and reporters who came to say goodbye.

  “He came out after dinner, and believe it or not, they towed his car. The king’s car! And he couldn’t get a cab. So he had to walk three miles, in the industrial area of Denver, to pick up his car. When he got there, the lady said: “Can I see some I.D., please? And I need $100.”

  In summation, Bowlen
tilted his head toward Old No. 7, and concluded: “So welcome to the world of the retired great quarterback, John.”

  NFL competition is a heavy dose of adrenaline. Go cold turkey on that and reentry into the relatively mundane life of a retired QB can be a shock to the system.

  Blindside hits shook Elway to the core. Jack Elway, his father and confidant, died of a heart attack at age 69, during the spring of 2001. Jana, the twin sister born 11 minutes after her famous big brother, succumbed to lung cancer in 2002. The first couple of Denver, once described to me by Janet Elway as two ordinary people leading extraordinary lives, ended their marriage with a divorce in 2003.

  “It was boom, boom, boom,” the retired quarterback said.

  On an August afternoon in 2007, after not talking to him for more than a year, I caught up with Elway. To tell the truth, it was not hard to catch him. Elway limped across the grass, with a bulky, black brace on his knee, as ominous thunderclouds rumbled overhead. He was coaching the quarterbacks at Cherry Creek High School. Why was he here? The starting quarterback for the Bruins was his son.

  “Emotion always comes before business,” Elway told me. Coaching his kid during a high school season was obviously a cherished bonding experience for a middle-aged man who had learned how your world is capable of quickly unraveling, without rhyme or reason.

  “That’s the thing, to be in the football wars with him,” said Elway, explaining why he was so delighted to be working on a prep practice field with his son. “Plus, I know a little about the job. It’s a way for me to be back around the game again and get excited about the game again.”

  It was as plain as the strain on Elway’s face. He was searching. For something to get his competitive juices flowing. For a place in the game. There were too many years left on the clock to plop down on the sofa and try to kill the time by reviewing highlights of his glorious past.