DENVER (AP) — Peyton Manning stuffed the football into his helmet and handed it to an equipment man for
safekeeping.
The connection: Flawless, as usual.
The keepsake: Certainly one he’ll want to hang on to.
The
Broncos quarterback had an answer for everyone Sunday — from Tom Brady
to the New England defense to anyone who thought he couldn’t win the big
one.
Manning is taking the Broncos on a trip to New York for the
Super Bowl after another of his impeccably crafted victories — this
time, a 26-16 win over the Patriots on Sunday in the AFC title game.
"Being in my 16th season, going to my third Super Bowl, I know how hard it is to get there,"
Manning said.
Especially this time.
Only
three years ago, he could barely grip a football as he started the long
comeback from surgeries that ravaged his neck and nerve endings. And
only 53 weeks ago, he suffered a devastating loss to Baltimore in the
divisional playoffs that derailed what looked like a Super Bowl trip in
his comeback season.
But Manning will get his chance for a second
Super Bowl ring, after all. He’ll try to become the first starting
quarterback to win one with two different teams, at the Meadowlands on
Feb. 2 against the Seattle Seahawks, who beat San Francisco 23-17 in the
NFC title game.
"He’s been remarkable," said Broncos coach John
Fox, off to his second Super Bowl as a head coach. "It’s unprecedented
what he did."
After packing away his football, Manning ran to the
30-yard line to shake hands with Brady. A bit later in the locker room,
he celebrated with his father, Archie, and brothers Cooper and Eli, the
Giants quarterback who surprised Peyton much the way Peyton surprised
him by showing up at the NFC title game two years ago.
The Indy-turned-Denver quarterback improved to 5-10 lifetime against Brady, but is now 2-1 in AFC title
games.
"I have a lot of respect for him," Brady said. "Certainly, he’s a great player and he
played great today."
Though
Manning threw for 400 yards, it was more dink-and-dunk than a fireworks
show in this, the 15th installment between the NFL’s two best
quarterbacks of a generation. Manning set up four field goals by Matt
Prater and put his stamp on this one with a pair of long, meticulous and
mistake-free touchdown drives in which nothing came cheap.
He
geared down the no-huddle, hurry-up offense that helped him set records
for touchdown passes and yardage this season and made the Broncos the
highest-scoring team in history. The result: 93- and 80-yard touchdown
drives that each lasted more than seven minutes; they were the two
longest, time-wise, of the season for the Broncos (15-3).
The Broncos held the ball for 35:44. They were 7 for 13 on third-down conversions.
"To
keep Tom Brady on the sideline is a good thing," Manning said. "That’s
something you try to do when you’re playing the Patriots."
Manning
capped the second long drive with a 3-yard pass to Demaryius Thomas,
who got inside the overmatched Alfonzo Dennard and left his feet to make
the catch. It gave Denver a 20-3 lead midway through the third quarter.
From there, it was catch-up time for Brady and the Pats (13-5), and they are not built for that — at
least not this year.
"We got in a hole there," Brady said. "It was just too much to dig our way out."
A
team that averaged more than 200 yards on the ground the last three
games didn’t have much quick-strike capability. Brady, who threw for
most of his 277 yards in comeback mode, actually led the Patriots to a
pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns. But they were a pair of
time-consuming, 80-yard drives. The second cut the deficit to 26-16 with
3:07 left, but the Broncos stopped Shane Vereen on the 2-point
conversion and the celebration was on in Denver.
"Losing is never
easy," Patriots defensive lineman Rob Ninkovich said. "But when you have
somebody as talented as (Manning), who puts in as much work and effort,
and has done it for so long, it’s a little bit easier to swallow."
The
trip to New York, where it figures to be at least a tad cooler than
Sunday’s 63-degree reading at kickoff, will come 15 years after John
Elway rode off into the sunset with his second straight Super Bowl
victory.
The Broncos have had one close call since — when they
lost at home to Pittsburgh in the 2005 season’s AFC title game — but
what it really took was Elway’s return to the franchise in 2011. He
slammed the door on the Tim Tebow experiment and signed Manning to a
contract, knowing there were risks involved in bringing to town a
thirty-something quarterback coming off multiple operations to resurrect
his career.
Even without Von Miller on the field, Elway put enough pieces in place around Manning to move within a
game of the championship.
Thomas. Wes Welker (four catches, 38 yards). Eric Decker (5-73). Tight end Julius Thomas (8-85).
"It’s been a terrific group," Elway said as he hoisted the AFC championship trophy. "They
worked their tail off all year."
Manning knows how to make the most of all the options he’s been given.
This
game started getting out of hand at about the same time Patriots
cornerback Aqib Talib went out with a knee injury. Nobody else could
cover Thomas, and Manning, who finds mismatches even under the toughest
of circumstances, found this one quickly.
"Talib’s an excellent player," Manning said, "but Demaryius was going to be a big part of
the game plan, either way."
Thomas
finished with seven catches for 134 yards, including receptions of 26
and 27 yards that set up a field goal for a 13-3 lead before the half.
Denver
got the ball to start the third quarter and Manning hit Thomas for 15
and 4 yards as part of the 80-yard, 7:08 touchdown drive that gave
Denver the 17-point lead.
It was 23-3 before Brady began the comeback that came up short.
"Peyton
Manning is Peyton Manning," Patriots defensive end Andre Carter said.
"He’s a smart player and able to make adjustments when he needs to."
New England came up a win short of the Super Bowl for the second straight year.
The
thought this week was that Bill Belichick’s team was playing with house
money, having well exceeded expectations for a team that lost a number
of stars — Aaron Hernandez, Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski — and has been
plagued by injuries all year.
But a loss is a loss and facts are
facts. Belichick is stuck on three titles and hasn’t won one since the
NFL busted him for the Spygate videotaping scandal.
"There were a
lot of opportunities in the game that, if we were able to coach better,
play better, execute better in any of those areas, it would have given
us a chance," Belichick said.
Manning said Belichick is the best
coach he’s ever had to go against. The quarterback insisted this week’s
showdown against Brady was more Broncos vs. Patriots than Manning vs.
Brady. He lets others decide who’s the greatest at this or that.
But
he earned a chance to improve on his already-sterling legacy — one that
figures to leave him holding his fifth MVP trophy come Super Bowl week.
A
win at MetLife Stadium in two weeks would put him in the same company
brother Eli, along with Elway, Roger Staubach and a few others as a
two-time Super Bowl winner.
Two weeks for Manning to prepare might feel like a lifetime.
At times, his long, difficult comeback has felt like a lifetime, too.
"We’ve
definitely come a long way in two years," Manning said. "And bouncing
back from last year’s playoff loss to put ourselves in this position, it
definitely feels very gratifying."
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