All four contests in the next round of the NFL playoffs have some additional drama to them but probably the one that has caught most of the fans’ imagination will be the Denver Broncos against the Indianapolis Colts.
Peyton Manning will face off against his old team and his successor, Andrew Luck.
Manning in public may relish the challenge but it can hardly be the way he wants to wind up his career. He has more to lose than he has to win.
Of course he’ll reach the NFL Hall Of Fame but in recent years, those who were dying to bestow the title, “Greatest Quarterback Of All Time” on him have had to retract.
Manning may be rivaling Brett Farve and Dan Marino for all the known passing records but when it comes to winning, he also rivals Farve and Marino. Like them, his post-season record is not distinguished. Farve only won one Super Bowl and Marino never.
Manning has been to the big game three times and has only won once. That does not put him in the class of Otto Graham, Terry Bradshaw, Bart Starr, Jim Plunkett, Joe Montana, his greatest rival, Tom Brady, or even his own brother Eli.
He is an exceptional quarterback – but not high up in the NFL football heavenly skies where many mindless fans want to place him.
Now he has to face his old team in the playoffs for the first time and a defeat will add considerably to that even higher mountain of post-season mediocrity he has accumulated through the years. Beating them will be more like a survival test, rather than anything positive to be gained.
When the Colts drafted Luck and let Manning go, it was because they figured that they had had a good run with Manning. At the time, it was the opportune moment to draft a competent successor and start on their new future. So far Luck has developed the way they envisioned it to be. He has taken the Colts to the playoffs, won division titles and has won a playoff game.
But now it is Luck’s chance to take the Colts a step further and reach the AFC title game and the fate it seems have offered the ironical challenge against his own predecessor, a suspect playoff quarterback. There could be no better opportunity for Luck to launch a more successful Indianapolis Colts’ quarterback career than by sending his predecessor to the sidelines.
This is hardly what Peyton wants. Right now he is mentioned in the same breath as Johnny Unitas in terms of Colts all-time greats but he certainly does not want to be remembered as being in the game that was the start of his successor’s even more successful career. The football gods are hanging a bitter sword over his head. If they want to test him, to diminish his status, to prove to everyone that he never had what it takes to be an even greater quarterback than his current record, then they have set up everything the way they want.
Peyton Manning now has to gather all his spiritual resources together or else be further exposed. He has to win or at least lose and it is not his fault.
If Luck should beat him, it still will not put him in Manning’s class. He has to win one Super Bowl to equal Manning and two to surpass him. And getting by Peyton is only the first and maybe easiest step. There are still four other Super Bowl quarterbacks left, Brady, Russell Wilson, Joe Flacco, and Aaron Rodgers around to measure himself against.
But if he does beat Peyton, he will have taken another step forward in his development, regardless of what happens in the AFC title game.
And poor Peyton will slip down another notch among the all-time greats.
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