From the beginning, maybe I looked at the football relationship between Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck completely wrong. Yes, they are rivals. But their real connection is as twin sons of different fathers.
For the first time in league history, two sons of former NFL quarterbacks will square off as starting quarterbacks in the playoffs when Manning leads the Broncos against Luck and the Colts on Sunday.
It requires far more than being born with a silver spoon to throw touchdown passes on Sunday. Being the son of an NFL quarterback, however, does have its privileges.
The athletic tape that wrapped ankles and patched dings of football warriors littered the locker-room floor. The used tape was everywhere, a sticky mess. Discarded by beaten New Orleans Saints players, the adhesive tape stunk with sweat. But in the eyes of a young Peyton Manning and his big brother Cooper, the tangled tape was treasure, there for the taking.
“We made a little tape ball, molded it into a football, then took it out on the Superdome turf and played a one-on-one, 100-yard game. You would kick it off, and try to return it 100 yards for a touchdown. That was cool, very cool,” Manning said, recalling his memories as a 5-year-old boy from three decades ago.
“We’d be playing, and my dad would come out and get us when he was done in the locker room. Unfortunately, playing for the Saints, many of those times, he was on the losing side. But he always had such a great smile for us, you’d never know he lost.”
Long before Manning won the first of his five MVP awards in the NFL, his father was a football legend. Archie Manning, now 65 years old, starred for the Ole Miss Rebels and twice made the Pro Bowl during a pro career that spanned from 1971-82, mostly with a New Orleans team so wretched it was derisively called the Aints.
Oliver Luck is a 54-year-old sports executive whose achievements have been as varied as leading the Houston Dynamo to soccer championships and serving as athletic director at West Virginia, where he starred at quarterback. He threw 13 touchdown passes as a backup with the Houston Oilers from 1982-86. By way of comparison, his son threw 13 TD passes for the Colts — this past September.
When Andrew Luck inherited the House that Peyton Built after the Colts kicked out a physically battered and ego-bruised Manning in 2012, the natural reaction was to imagine a bitter sports feud brewing between a gifted Stanford rookie and the old veteran with a 6-inch surgical scar etched in the back of Manning’s neck.
But when the once and future quarterbacks of the Colts shared reps at the Pro Bowl barely six months after Luck led his first touchdown drive in Indianapolis, there was laughter rather than animosity between them. From the start, Manning and Luck treated each other like brothers in Hawaii.
“I’ve always believed NFL quarterbacks were an elite fraternity,” Manning explained. “Unless you are an NFL quarterback, you don’t really know what it’s like.”
So maybe here’s what we underestimated about Luck and Manning: They were raised too well to hate each other over something that can be as petty as the brutal business of pro football.
When I asked Luck this week what gift from his father he appreciated most, the easy answer would have been the gene-pool blessing that granted him a 6-foot-4, 240-pound frame built for football and a bazooka of a passing arm.
What Luck cited instead was far more revealing as to why, at age 25, he could be the one player many general managers would select if starting an NFL franchise from scratch.
“I can thank my dad for everything. Both my parents, actually,” Luck said. “But one trait that has served me well in the playoffs? I like to think he instilled a sense of responsibility in me.”
Those words from Luck echoed something Archie Manning told me shortly after the Broncos signed his son as a free agent nearly three years ago. The intention of Archie and Olivia Manning was never to see any of their three boys grow up to be an NFL quarterback. Their goal as parents was to raise a man of integrity, regardless of what Peyton chose as his life’s work.
Of all an NFL quarterback’s skills, it’s leadership that will often make or break a champion. Down four points late in the final quarter, with the end zone 80 yards in the distance, the quarterback must find a way to win. If instead of being the hero he throws a game-ending interception, he must stand in front of the television cameras and wear responsibility for the loss.
“Now having the same job that my dad did, all the time we spent together when I was a kid, showing me how to be a quarterback and everything that comes with it, whether it was dealing with the media or taking time to sign autographs, had a big impact on me,” Manning said.
Manning and Luck are forever linked. One is a 38-year-old legend bound for the Hall of Fame. The other is a young lion ready to rule the league. They are glorious past and bright future of football in Indianapolis.
Sunday, these two quarterbacks will meet for the first time in the playoffs after splitting victories during two previous regular-season meetings.
But most of all, and most important, what connects Manning and Luck is a shared heritage that runs far deeper than a blue horseshoe on the Colts helmet. They are the sons of Archie and Oliver. They are living a sports dream more vivid in the second act.
Getting paid to play quarterback is awesome. Seeing your son do it, on as big a stage as the playoffs? Even better.
For Luck and Manning, every NFL Sunday is Father’s Day.
Mark Kiszla: mkiszla@denverpost.com or
