SAN JOSE, Calif. – Super Bowl “Media Day,” that annual mutant event where a would-be news conference crashes head-first into the dark corners of Lewis Carroll’s cranium, was moved up to Monday night this year.
Actually, it was a brilliant decision by the NFL. It gets the cartoonish element of the league’s annual championship game out of the way early and allows the players to get a consume themselves with goofiness before getting serious.
Count Peyton Manning among them. The partially broken-down 39-year-old, who likely will be playing his final game Sunday against Carolina, was trying to take it all in Monday at a SAP Arena. The Spanish-speaking dude who was trying to ask a question through puppet. The two women from separate Chinese televisions stations who, 10 minutes apart, asked Manning to say hello to China. (Manning: “Didn’t I just do that?”) The goofball who asked three straight questions where the correct answer for all was “Omaha.” The women from his hometown who said, “Hi Peyton! I’m Michelle. From New Orleans! Remember me!?!” (Manning: “No. Sorry.”)
“Super Bowl week is special. It’s unique. We’ve been encouraged to enjoy it and soak it all up,” Manning said.
It was perfect out for Manning, because the last thing he was going to do was talk about the future. After the AFC championship win over New England, he was overheard telling Patriots coach Bill Belichick, “This might be my last rodeo. So it sure has been a pleasure.”
Manning reportedly has told friends this game will be it, win or lose. He’s done. He’ll get out before he loses any more body parts. But he would have been more likely to have a heart-to-heart with the puppet than talk about his impending retirement.
“When I was injured the way I went about it was, ‘OK, I’m not playing this week, so let me just get healthier,’” Manning said. “It was easy just to focus on that week and not get too far ahead. That really helped me a lot. So I’m sticking with that for one more week.”
Manning, who turns 40 next month, will be the oldest quarterback to start a Super Bowl. His body is breaking down. He has had four neck surgeries, including a cervical fusion that forced him to miss the entire 2011 season, and is laboring on a bad wheel: a tear in his plantar fascia tendon that limited him to nine starts this season (his fewest since his freshman year at Tennessee).
On Sunday, he will be facing a favored Carolina team that is led by the league’s current best player, Cam Newton.
This isn’t a game Manning is expected to win. Yet, there is a warped narrative in some corners that Manning must win another title to prove the greatness of his “legacy.”
That logic would suggest that a 17-year career that includes a league championship, three (going on four) Super Bowl appearances, five MVP awards, three passing yardage titles, four passing touchdown titles, 14 Pro Bowls, seven All-Pro honors and the guarantee of retiring as the NFL’s all-time leader in yardage and touchdowns somehow is not enough to secure a legacy.
But this game shouldn’t define anything for Manning that isn’t already clear. Titles can mean a lot for a career but they can be overstated. Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl. Dan Marino didn’t. It doesn’t mean Dilfer is worthy of anything more than mowing Marino’s lawn.
Ring-less fingers don’t mean Jim Kelly and Dan Fouts weren’t great quarterbacks. Having more rings than his older brother (2-1) doesn’t mean Eli Manning is a better quarterback than Peyton. I’m not sure Eli gets into the Hall of Fame. Peyton gets in the moment somebody flips on the light switch in the voting room.
Tom Brady is in the argument with Joe Montana for the greatest quarterback in NFL history. But he lost two Super Bowls to Eli Manning and has dropped three out of four AFC title games to Peyton. So Brady is playoff roadkill?
“Peyton and his impact on the game of football will not be determined and based off this one game,” Eli Manning said last week. “He’s kind of, in a lot of ways, changed the game, with the no-huddle offense and all he does at the line of scrimmage. I hope he can win. But his impact has already been made and his legacy should not be affected by this one game.”
This is not the same Manning we’ve seen for most of his 72,000-yard career. He threw 17 interceptions in less than 10 full games, one less than league leader Blake Bortles. He has 29 interceptions in his last 22 games.
This Manning is not great. Sometimes he’s not even good. This isn’t the time to look at the man and think, “If he can’t win this game, he’s a choker.” If he wins, however, his resume becomes that much greater.
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