Peyton Manning by Mark Kiszla

Author:Mark Kiszla
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
Published: 2012-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Manning versus Elway

The clock was ticking toward eleven o’clock at night, but the three kings who rule the Broncos’ fate were in absolutely no hurry to go home. Quarterback Peyton Manning, front-office honcho John Elway, and coach John Fox stood together around the new Denver quarterback’s locker long after the game had ended, like three fraternity brothers standing around the keg on an awesome night nobody wanted to end.

The curtain had risen on the Manning era in Denver to thunderous applause from the home crowd, and after beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 31–19 in the first game of the 2012 NFL season, the reviews were going to be positively glowing.

Down the hall from this private celebration by Manning, Elway, and Fox, journalists with deadlines to meet squirmed impatiently in their seats, waiting for an audience with the evening’s star. Nevertheless, Broncos media relations director Patrick Smyth, one of the best and brightest in the business, listened to the laughter bouncing among Elway, Manning, and Fox. Interrupt this impromptu executive meeting so the quarterback could face the cameras? No way. Smyth was way too smart to attempt anything so foolhardy.

“I can buzz the tower,” Smyth told a newspaper hack waiting for a word with Elway. “But I’m not breaking this up. Look at these guys. They’re enjoying themselves. And they should, don’t you think?”

Before taking the field against Pittsburgh on the night of September 9, the four-time MVP who had endured four neck surgeries had not taken a snap in a game that counted for more than 600 days.

Six hundred days of rust. For Manning, it was gone in 60 seconds.

Manning looked as if he had never left the huddle, let alone transferred from Indianapolis to Denver in a move that turned his life upside down and league fortunes inside out. On the second snap of his big debut night, Manning found Eric Decker for a simple and simply beautiful 13-yard gain. Against the Steelers, Manning would finish with 19 completions in 26 attempts for 253 yards and two touchdowns.

As Manning replayed the night with Fox and Elway, it was apparent these three men were not encumbered by the normal boss and employee formalities. They were three peers getting their first real glimpses of how well their dreams of success for the Broncos could actually play out on the football field. And they were loving the possibilities.

As Manning finally departed for his postgame press conference, I approached Elway and told him the one thought that would not budge from my mind throughout that entire evening, when Manning brought back the noise unheard in a Denver stadium since Old No. 7 had retired in the spring of 1999. Cheers come in a variety of tones and timbre. This roar was a sound louder than hope. The fans were again rocking with the knowledge that their Broncos were firmly back in good standing among the league’s elite teams.

“Can you believe,” I asked Elway, “the Colts cut that guy?”

While shaking his head from side to side, Elway wore the grin of a man with the world on a string.

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