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| Peyton Manning Gets the Better of a Rivalry, With Some Help |
In a nutshell, the Denver Broncos’ 41-23 victory against the Giants came down to Moreno on his own outrushing the Giants by 93 to a pathetic 23 (on 19 attempts) and scoring two touchdowns running wide right in front of assorted family and friends Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
“Sweet,” said Moreno, 26. “My grandma was here, too.”
What do you know? The story wasn’t all in the Manning family as the Broncos defeated the Giants in New Jersey for the first time in 33 years. Seldom is it as cut and dried as we’d like it to be in the multilayered universe of team sports.
“Every team wants to be balanced,” Moreno said. “We all want to have a good running game to play off.”
Peyton Manning had that. Eli Manning did not. Forced to throw the ball 49 times (for 362 yards), Eli was intercepted four times and had a quarterback rating of 53.3. Peyton completed 30 of 43 passes for 307 yards, 2 touchdowns and no interceptions.
That left all of the Mannings feeling less than fulfilled after the reunion. Archie, the dad, said, “I hate to see one of them struggle.” Olivia, the mom, said she only could stand the game when it was close. Even Peyton, the winner, said, “I’m kind of glad it’s over with.”
Sibling rivalries that play out so publicly — and in this case so one-sidedly — can’t be appreciated by anyone in the family, especially the parents. In Archie and Olivia’s case, they camped outside the Giants’ locker room after the game in an obvious show of support for the defeated Eli.
The last thing you would wish on these people is a Manning versus Manning Super Bowl next February in the very same stadium. Granted, that is not a great concern if the Giants can’t reinvent their running game within the next few weeks and do not start playing better on defense.
The Broncos, conversely, could well be the regular-season class of the American Football Conference — though that was the case last season when they coughed up a playoff game at home to Baltimore.
Yes, Peyton’s career has seen its share of playoff disappointments, while Eli has twice played the role of Rocky in winning two Super Bowls with the Giants. That doesn’t mean Eli is in Peyton’s league in terms of quarterback legacies.
It is possible that Peyton, at 37, may never win more than the one championship he led the Indianapolis Colts to in February 2007. Eli, at 32, could well add another one or two. But Denver will sink to sea level and East Rutherford will replace Manhattan as America’s media capital before critics in their right mind make a convincing case that Eli belongs in the same discussion as Peyton beyond their familial brotherhood.
If ever there was a lesson in not having to measure the greatness of an athlete by how many championships he has won, the continuing narrative of Peyton would be as good an example as any.
We do this all the time, of course. We play the how-many-rings game with our anointed superstars, as if one particular individual can be credited for all or most of the countless variables that constitute the winning of a title, especially in a sport as complex as football.
Early in Sunday’s game, Peyton reached 60,000 career yards passing, joining Brett Favre and Dan Marino and getting there faster than both. His regular season won-lost record is now 146-70. As good and as postseason clutch as Eli has been, the sibling rivalry with Peyton has been overstated. As many years as he may have left, it will never be close.
If any Manning deserved to have The Chosen 1 tattooed on his back, a la LeBron, it would not have been Archie or Eli, only Peyton. He has always been the one with the most talent, the more transcendent presence, the one who demands your attention the minute he steps on the field.
People like to compare the Manning brothers to the Williams sisters of tennis, but that has always been a reach. In terms of beating the odds, Venus and Serena were not culturally born into their sport the way Peyton and Eli were. Tennis is global, not just an American phenomenon. And when they have faced each other, it has been from the across the net, with no teammate to lean on, no other variables in play.
After a week of Manning Bowl hype, the take-away memo was that Peyton is in a class by himself, as long as he has a class outfit around him. A little more than a year after there were still doubts that he would ever play again after a severe neck injury kept him out a year and ended his long run in Indianapolis, and after he went on television and told the talk-show host Jim Rome that he didn’t think he would ever be as good as he was before the injury, Peyton was in charge at MetLife Stadium.
He also knew enough to take care of his Broncos family business.
“Knowshon was really critical today,” he said of his running back. “Thought he ran hard and that really opened up some things in the passing game.”
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