I started writing this in January. It’s not worth fleshing out right now, but something I’ll come back to when Football is back in season.
I’m just going to lay it all out on the table now. Peyton Manning is tied for my favorite Quarterback of all time.1 There is no professional athlete I enjoy watching more. From watching Peyton go under center figure out the defensive play to his great segments off the field there’s just no one more fun for me to root for.
Yet the most crushing part of the Broncos eventual home loss to the now Super bowl bound Champion Ravens was just how it happened. One minute I’m waving goodbye to Ray Lewis on my screen, the next my dream AFC Championship game where my two favorite active Quarterbacks would go head to head for a trip to the Super bowl is up in smoke along with any chance that Rahim Moore was going to recieve a contract extension this off season, and I just knew the Ravens were going to win. 2 Then to make it worse, the nightmare scenario becomes real as Peyton throws the eventual game-losing pick. Allowing talking heads to blame Peyton and (once again) once and for all declare that Peyton will never be Tom Brady.
It may be my Peyton preference at work, but I’ve always thought that Peyton’s postseason problem is that he is just too good.3In a sport where teams rise and fall throughout the season the consistently great that comes with having a great quarterback week in and week out can hide many flaws, at least until the playoffs.
