How Patriots fans should remember Peyton Manning—and how they will
New England respects Manning, but it does not revere him.
COMMENTARY
Peyton Manning can still adjust his legacy for a more comfortable fit, alter it around the seams, but he still has to wear it. With a Broncos victory over the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game in Denver on Sunday, he can tweak the narrative of his career. But 18 seasons into it, he cannot reinvent it. He is the second-best quarterback of his generation, forever the runner-up to Tom Brady.
Whether his Broncos finish as the runner-up to Brady’s Patriots in the AFC this season or advance to Super Bowl 50 has little bearing on how history will remember him. He enters the game 5-11 all time against Brady. To this point, he has won a single Super Bowl to Brady’s four. Manning has lost a quarterback-record 13 postseason games. Brady has won a QB-record 22. They’ll spar again Sunday. But Brady already delievered the knockout blow in the who’s-better bout with his Super Bowl XLIX win, if not sooner.
That there should not be a debate, of course, doesn’t guarantee there will be no debate. If the Broncos win, Manning will improve to 3-1 against Brady in conference championship games. That is a small sample. But it is also a sample large enough for those who desperately want Manning to be perceived as Brady’s superior to mount an argument on his behalf. It’s not a winning argument. But it’s one that will be made, and it will be insufferable.
Patriots fans will forever view Manning through the reflected glare coming off the rose-colored glasses the rest of the country uses to observe him. There’s a recurring suggestion during the buildup to this game that Manning is not respected around New England. That is not true. When Patriots head coach Bill Belichick says, as he did Wednesday, that he would “never ever, ever underestimate [Manning] under any circumstances,’’ we nod in collective agreement, which is a generous but earned tribute to a 39-year-old quarterback who threw eight more interceptions than touchdowns this season. As the Steelers learned the hard way, you don’t write off Manning, even when he seems plopped on the turf.
Manning is respected. Tension arises because is not revered around here, as he is by the national media. The see-no-flaw approach when it comes to Manning rightfully drives Patriots fans nuts. Jim Nantz, CBS’s lead play-by-play voice and Manning’s cohort in Sony and Papa John’s commercials, deemed Manning’s recent HGH scandal a non-story and declined to discuss it on air. Nantz’s partner, Phil Simms, over-praises Manning’s knack for, of all things, calling audibles, while also suggesting passes were tipped when in reality the wobbling ducks had departed his hand already quacking.
It’s extraordinarily frustrating as a fan to watch a player on a rival team receive praise for attributes he either lacks or does not have in abundance. Given how he’s covered, if you didn’t know better you’d think that Manning was the 199th pick of the draft, chosen behind a future goat farmer and a dude named Spergon who completed 46 percent of his NFL passes, among other quarterbacks. Meanwhile, the way Brady is portrayed could lead you to think he was actually the anointed No. 1 overall pick — literally the chosen one — with an NFL pedigree and every opportunity presented for his taking. It’s a backwards perception, and it probably derives from Brady looking like he just sauntered out of an Uggs ad, while Manning looks like the genial guy who just sliced your half-pound of honey smoked turkey breast at the Hannaford deli. Cut that meat, indeed.
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Dan Shaughnessy suggested in a column for The Boston Globe this week that Manning warrants similar respect to Derek Jeter. It’s a decent comparison, but ignores one glaring difference between them: Unlike Manning, Jeter was a repeat champion. Early in his career, Jeter won and won and won again, often at the Red Sox’ sadness and expense. He eventually got his comeuppance, captaining the sunken 2004 Yankees team that finally succumbed to the Red Sox. But with the aid of well-constructed, well-compensated rosters, he sure did collect a lot of jewelry during his career.
Jeter (and Brady) are first and foremost associated with winning. That was never Manning’s identity. It never will be. He was too often the guy with big stats who came up small in big games. He was to the Patriots what the Red Sox were to the Yankees. He was the talented opponent that would somehow botch its chance. He lost his first six matchups against Brady. For years, he could not solve a Belichick defense. He was so tormented by Ty Law that he’s joked good-naturedly he’ll introduce the former Patriots cornerback during his induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame someday.
Over those years, Manning was good for a laugh, and not just in his surprisingly humorous turns in his various commercials. He ripped off his chinstrap time and again in frustration until it became a symbol of Patriots’ success. He gave us the Manning Face. He introduced us to the beautiful phrase “idiot kicker who got liquored up and ran his mouth off.’’
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For a long time, he was the best kind of opponent, a superstar patsy, sure to melt under the spotlight at a Patriots fan’s wish or on Belichick’s command.
That did not last forever. We thought it might, but it did not. The rules of pass coverage were altered to Manning’s benefit. He got his first win versus Brady in his seventh try, and the Colts’ 40-21 victory in November 2005 was not accompanied by much suspense. That one was a thumping, but the real uh-oh moment came in January 2007. The Patriots built a 21-3 lead in the AFC Championship Game. They did not hold it. Manning authored the biggest comeback in conference championship history, throwing for 349 yards in the Colts’ 38-34 win. While he was off to securing his first and still only Super Bowl win, the Patriots were left wondering what changed and why the hell did it have to?
Whatever the reason, it had. Patriots fans always respected Manning’s talent and preparation, even if they expected their team to beat him. In recent years, there have been times when he got rolling against the Patriots and it felt like a defense of Lawrence Taylor clones wouldn’t have been able to slow him. In November 2009, Belichick famously went for it on a 4th down with 2 yards needed while deep in Patriots’ territory to keep the ball out of Manning’s hands. The Patriots got roughly 71 inches on that play, and Manning got the ball for the next one. The Colts soon got a 35-34 win. Two years ago, in a 55-touchdown season, he guided the Broncos past the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game.
The circumstances are different now. The Patriots, if healthy, are the better team. At 38, Brady is as exceptional as ever. Manning is a shell of what he was.
In a sense, it’s impressive enough that he’s even in the position for a 17th showdown with Brady. It seemed, and not so many weeks ago, that we were done with these duels.
We get one more, and most likely, only one more. Jeter ended his career against the Red Sox, fittingly. It would be similarly appropriate if Manning ended his career against the Patriots.
More appropriate would be if he ended it with a loss.
The season is at stake. But all matters regarding legacies? Those have long since been settled, and we already know Peyton Manning has come up short on that scoreboard.
Chad Finn can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeChadFinn.
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