Maybe the most amazing thing about the inevitable 509th touchdown pass of Peyton Manning’s career is the NFL record will be broken by the guy who would be selected last on the playground for a pick-up game. Go ahead. Mention the words “Manning” and “athletic” in the same breath. Spontaneous laughter erupts in the Broncos locker room.
“Well, his arm is very athletic,” Broncos cornerback Chris Harris Jr. said Wednesday, dissing his quarterback with faint praise.
His arm? What about the rest of Manning’s body?
“And his brain …,” says Harris, cracking up before he can finish the sentence.
You mean to tell me one of the coolest records in pro football is going to be claimed by a soft, slow, 38-year-old quarterback who would look far better standing in a sport coat on the set of “Jeopardy!” than jogging shirtless on the beach?
“He ain’t running, man,” says Harris, laughing from deep in his belly at the memory of Manning jogging in for a touchdown on a naked bootleg against the Dallas Cowboys in 2013.
Well, Manning has to be good at something besides throwing a football that requires a semblance of athletic ability. Bowling, perhaps? Or maybe pitching horseshoes?
“Uh … I’ve never seen him do any of that,” says Harris, refusing to give the veteran QB credit. “He’s Peyton Manning. He’s probably good at golf. But do you really have to be super athletic on the golf course?”
It seems as if every week, the Broncos face another young gun from the new generation of NFL quarterbacks, capable of beating a defense with arm or legs. If it’s not San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who posed nude last year for a magazine, then the foe for Manning is Russell Wilson or Andrew Luck or a QB who is inevitably younger, quicker and more attractive in a Speedo.
By comparison, what’s left unsaid by the media is: Manning might be lucky to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Does that suggestion offend one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history?
“No, I’m not offended. I’m not offended. I think that would be giving you all way too much credit,” Manning replies with a wry smile. “I think you have athletic skills to play quarterback. But I’m not going to beat those guys in a foot race, nor would I ever even attempt to be in the race with those guys. Nobody wants to see that.”
It seems almost unfathomable that Archie Manning, father of the Broncos’ star, once was a scrambling, gambling quarterback in the NFL. How did those genes disappear in the DNA transfer?
Nobody lauds Manning for being athletic. He does not possess a laser-rocket arm. But his passes are so uncannily accurate they seem to be delivered from his right hand to the mitts of Denver receivers by the transporter on the Star Trek Enterprise.
“People want to compare Terry Bradshaw to Peyton Manning, or Dan Marino to John Elway. You can’t compare. Every great quarterback brings his own flavor to it. … Every great athlete brings something different to the table. Maybe it’s his speed or his size or his brain or his knowledge of the game. Everybody talks about how great Joe Montana was. He was not the most smooth-looking athlete known to man,” Broncos coach John Fox says.
The Broncos were declared America’s Team in a new Harris Poll. Here’s my theory why: It’s because Manning is America’s Quarterback.
Manning looks like the QB from next door. Manning likes pizza, just like you and me. Heck, any of us could drive a Buick, as Manning does in television commercials. None of us could even dream of being as handsome as Tom Brady, wearing Uggs on a date with his lingerie-model wife. But maybe, just maybe, if we spent enough time in the video room of an NFL team and practiced, practiced, practiced, we could set the NFL record for career touchdown passes.
“Being a quarterback is not about being an athlete,” says Harris, chuckling.
Certainly not in the case of Manning. But the joke is on the rest of the NFL.
Want the metric that might be the greatest measure of Manning’s football genius?
509 TD passes.
Mark Kiszla: mkiszla@denverpost.com or
