It is what? Week 7 in the NFL? Not quite half way through this season, and yes we have a big game. How big is it?
The underlying story is even bigger than tonight's game. Peyton Manning the quarterback for the Denver Broncos is revolutionizing the game of professional football, or at least he has through game 6 of the 2013 season, his second with the Broncos. It's not just the numbers he is putting up, but the way he plays.
A dominate athlete wins, wins big, and wins the big ones. But three athletes have transcended even dominance. These three revolutionized their sport -- redefined it, made it a different sport when they were in their prime.
Years ago, it seems now, long ago in a galaxy far far away, part of being the quarterback any quarterback in the NFL included calling your own plays. Field general was a name we used for quarterbacks in those days. In fact if a coach wanted to call the plays it was a source of contention and irritation almost of questioning the QB's manhood.
Gradually head coaches and then offensive coordinators started calling the plays from the sidelines. This is not field generalship but the QBs were athletes and the head coaches were management. The coaches tended to stay around longer and became even bigger stake holders and they wrested from the QBs the play calling task. QBs became just like any other payer, they just had to play the game. Many coaches scripted games and still do -- the first few plays the first half or even whole games.
I won't question the folly of this, but there are number of things involved in play calling that cannot be addressed from the sideline or the box, and scripting is inflexible. It would be nice if scripts worked but football is a game played by human beings and so flexibility -- the ability to change a play based on the characteristics point in the game, field position, defensive adjustments, match-ups, and injuries -- gives offenses and edge.
Yes, players play hurt. Professional football is a violent game. sometimes it is too violent for me to watch. Injury and the other elements of the game on the field listed above have to be accounted for in play calling during a game. Coaches like control and scripts offer that control, but at the price of flexibility and spontaneity. Coaches like this. Players not really.
To say Peyton Manning is the elitist of elite Quarterbacks in the NFL is a double oxymoron. All quarterbacks who take a snap in a game in the NFL are elite. They have made it through high school college and are now taking snaps in one of the fastest most difficult and violent "games" ever defined by humanity. They have been pampered cajoled and lied to most of their lives by everyone around them. They are cocky and fearless playing the position that is at once the most unnatural and requires the greatest athletic ability of any sport. They play a position that requires courage, intelligence and superior athletic ability, and coolness -- poise. In what other sport and at what other position is the word poise used as a positive trait and descriptor. No that word is reserved for quarterbacks and beauty pageant participants only.
The skills necessary to be a quarterback are unnatural. Quarterbacks are at once the beauty pageant queens and fighter pilots of sport. In what other sport, in what other position is the athlete required to take five steps backward and then two steps toward larger, angry, violent men who do nothing all week but practice and dream about hurting them. Having a full unnatural confidence that the five men in front of them will form not a wall but a bow that will protect them from the generally larger and quicker men who can use their hands and would like nothing more than to put them on the ground and watch them not get up but be carried off the field.
Then there is the blindside. The startling possibility that the mind and body have experienced but that can never be considered thereafter -- blindsiding. To square up in the pocket and concentrate down field checking off receivers making a split second decision and throwing an accurate pass that most of us can only dream about throwing under no pressure at all. Requires leaving one's back exposed to these violent quick defensive linemen, linebackers and blitzing defensive backs. There is nothing in sport like being blindsided. Not even the violence of boxing compares to exposing your back concentrating down field and just before releasing the ball being crushed unexpectedly in the back. How many times has a quarterback lay on the ground hearing cheers and watching the chains move as he gets up never seeing the receiver catch the pass he just released. Peyton Manning took one such hit three weeks ago against the Raiders. A vicious blow one in which his back arched and the previously injured neck snapped. Personally I thought it might be the end, but Manning never even acknowledged it then or later.
The later part is important. If anything separates good quarterbacks from elite quarterbacks, and think about this, is that the elite are blindsided and yet never let the thought of the possibility of such a vicious surprise violent act cross their minds again. If it does if the slightest thought or care is given to the possibility of it happening again, even a body memory of such a rude awakening, the quarterback will never be effective at the NFL level again. This is a truth in courage that most casual fans do not understand. This is the fighter pilot type of courage exhibited by quarterbacks at this level. There is no experience in this world like being blindsided, and the great quarterbacks like Peyton Manning never even acknowledge it.
But this is not what makes Peyton Manning transcendent. All NFL quarterbacks who survive in the game have this type of courage.
Peyton Manning has changed the game because of the way he and his offense have changed the game. No huddle, coming up to the line reading the defense, and calling the play from that point is not just different in the NFL it is revolutionary, and Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos have perfected it. No one else no other of the elite quarterbacks in the NFL can do it only Peyton Manning has the intelligence and athletic ability to pull this off and be consistently effective. Even in the two minute drills plays are called before hand even scripted and adjusted maybe at the line. Manning no huddles strides to the line reads the defense like no one else and then through a series of verbal and non verbal ques calls out a complex encryption undetectable to the defense that results in a complex ballet of large men engaging in a predetermined pattern designed to position them such that they can execute a human mosaic designed to move the football forward at least 10 yards every three plays and result in a touchdown. A score. This is something that Manning and the broncos can and are doing to a dgree that has not been seen in the NFL and likely when Manning's playing days are over will not be seen again in the NFL. It remains to be seen if this method is reserved to Manning alone or if other quarterbacks can reach the bar he has set do it convince their coaches that it is better than calling plays from the sideline and result in wins. Other quarterbacks even Peyton's brother Eli though elite cannot consistently and effectively pull of this revolutionary way of running an offense that gives Manning and the broncos an undeniable and profound revolutionary advantage over defenses in the game of football. When the Broncos are on offese these days professional football is different then it ever has been and is ever likely to be again. The game is redefined temporarily. In fact we are watching not a game, but art, a painting, a piece of music, a ballet a masterpiece that is unique to Manning.
How unique and advantageous is this ability to run the offense this way? I can think of only two comparisons in professional sports.
One such period and athelet is Rickey Henderson. A player who changed the game of baseball in the same way that Manning has changed football this year, and only for the time he was playing and able to achieve transcendent greatness, Only during his prime years. During that time during Henderson's prime years. baseball when he played was a different game. It was not the same game before this time and it has not been the same after, what that means is only Ricky could do what Rickey did, and the impact on the game the profound difference in the game during this time was due only to Ricky.
What Peyton is doing is having the same impact and unless we see quarterbacks of the future able to do what he does and impact the game the way he is Peyton Manning s contribution and thus his legacy in the NFL will be as stunning and profound as Ricky Henderson's was to baseball. He will prove himself to by unique and elite not just during his time but for all time. He will be if he is able to sustain this for say the next three years the greatest football player of all time not just dominant, but transcendent, he will have changed the game of football in a profound way for three years. Football will be different because of him and only him for this period.
Just as Henderson in his unique way redefined the game of baseball, Manning is profoundly changing the game of football. Just as Henderson was and is the greatest baseball player of all time for the way he changed the game for three years, Manning for what he does these three will be the greatest football player of all time. No one could do, has done, and so far, hasn't done what Ricky did. What he did as with Manning is doing is to profoundly change the game for the time he was able to do it.
During Henderson's prime years, the game did not start out as 0 to 0, it started as 1 to 0 in favor of Henderson's team. Rickey would invariably during these 3 years get on base somehow, once on first he would be on second and once on second on third with no outs, thus scoring. In every game. He would score on an out, on a hit or on an error. What is more when Henderson did not get on base and steal his way around, he hit a lead off home run. Rickey changed the game of baseball for three years it was never that way before and has never been that way since. Other players and other teams had no choice but to accept this truth -- the reality of Rickey Henderson -- the reality that the game started 1 to 0 in favor of Rickey's team.
As Henderson was to baseball during his prime three years, Mohammad Ali was to boxing during the years before his enforced layoff. During that period Ali was not just dominant, but transcendent. Boxing was not the same as it was before Ali came along and it was not the same after his forced retirement. For the brief period of Ali's prime, boxing was different, not just dominated but defined by Ali. He moved like a ballet dancer hit like a heavyweight and was never legally touched. Ali did not block punches he slipped them moving his head a fraction on an inch to slip the punch. He moved constantly. Prior to his forced retirement he was not only the greatest boxer of all time but he changed the sport. We were not seeing boxing we were seeing the art of Ali. A masterpiece.
Three athletes. Three different sports. Three stand alone as having left a unique impact. Three have revolutionized their sport. Three have made there sport and all of sport different for a period of time.
Manning has not just raised the bar he holds the bar, and no one can take it out of his hands.
Football is at its essence a simple game. It is disparate plays. The players read, get into position according to a predefined pattern, and execute. With the way Manning is playing now, defenses are locked in. They cannot react, adjust, or change enough to compensate for what Manning is doing. He strides to the line, the defense forms, he reads, he calls the play, and he and his supporting cast execute the play. The defense has no time, no subterfuge to use to fool Manning. Peyton reads on the spot after the defense forms and calls the play based on this read not from a script of from the huddle but on the fly and then the team executes based on what he sees. It is a ballet, a show, it is a thing of beauty. Beauty in its simplicity, uniqueness, and skill in its execution. No one else at any level can do what Manning does. Manning's contribution is game changing, thus he has revolutionized the game in a fashion that will only last as long as he is able to do it. Like Ali and Henderson.
We are privileged to watch. This is greatness defined. We are seeing something we have never seen before and are unlikely to see again. Savor and enjoy it. It is a connoisseur's time and it won't last for long.
The game today? Well on any given Sunday any NFL team can beat any other NFL team. But don't bet against Peyton. There is a lot of emotion, obviously with Manning returning to the stadium he built and the team he personally turned around and the team and the owner who so shamelessly treated him. This is a treat for us as we watch Manning work his magic with the added drama and emotion.
It is so far the biggest, most interesting game of the year, and with Manning today the largest spectacle this year in any sport.
I'm thinking it will probably be an exceptional win for an exceptional team in an exceptional time with an exceptional player. We are watching history and art today, and every time Manning plays these next three years.
What a privilege.
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