By David Ramsey, The Gazette –
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A risk. A mind-boggling risk. This is what John Elway has undertaken. Peyton Manning, for all his past greatness, carries extreme risk. If you don’t recognize the peril of transporting Manning to Colorado, you’re just pretending. The peril is there.
But that’s how Elway operates, and I applaud his nerve, even if I’m filled with questions.
As one of the three or four greatest quarterbacks in football history, Elway seldom traveled the easy, logical path to victory. He threw into crowds. He sought to run over 250-pound linebackers. He was reckless, at times borderline crazed.
But, somehow, it worked. He carried five teams to the Super Bowl. He swiped the hearts of an entire region of football fans. He became Mr. Colorado.
Now he’s employing the same brand of courage in leading the Broncos. He’s taking a chance at greatness. He could crash, but this chance is worth it.
Handing your team, along with nearly $100 million in potential salary, to a 35-year-old with a surgically repaired neck is a death-defying leap of faith. I don’t care if the 35-year-old is named Peyton. It’s still the gamble of a football lifetime.
And that’s not the only hazard.
Waving goodbye to Tim Tebow, national folk hero, is also filled with peril.
Tebow led the Broncos to more than 20 points only four times in his 15 starts, and his completion percentage this season ranked 34th in an NFL with only 32 starting quarterbacks, but there is something special and magical and beyond numbers when it comes to No. 15. This is undeniable, even if you despise all things Tebow.
He could arrive in another NFL city and become a complete bust. Or, and this possibility should keep Elway awake at night, Tebow could keep winning games, defying the experts while thrilling his frighteningly obsessed fans.
Tebow could – if he is traded, as expected – haunt the Broncos for a dozen years. He’s young and sturdy, and he could finally tame his unruly left arm.
Manning, meanwhile, is facing a football future with a fragile, questionable neck. He could be ready to prove himself once again as the NFL’s No. 1 quarterback. He will be hungry to show the Colts they were insane to let him go, and he works as diligently and with as much intelligence as any player ever to compete in the NFL.
When you listen to Manning after a game, he talks with such precision about plays that you can’t believe he’s not watching film as he speaks. He’s never been about athleticism. His mind is his most powerful weapon, and it remains as sharp as when he arrived in the NFL.
Still, this all could be a mirage. NFL defenders are ferocious, desperate to deliver aching heads and broken bones. Manning will be working behind a Broncos offensive line that in its current state is mediocre. A couple big hits could transform Manning from the answer to everything wrong with the Broncos to an ancient, washed-up football warrior.
I’ve already expressed my skepticism of the Manning experiment. Over the decades, teams all across the Land of the Free have been fooled by memories. Fans and coaches and owners believed Michael Jordan and Johnny Unitas and many others were somehow immune to the vandalism that is the aging process.
Nobody is immune. Not even Peyton Manning.
But there’s the chance Manning still has a couple years of dominance remaining. This is the chance Elway has taken. He’s taking the biggest risk in the history of the Broncos franchise on Manning.
A return journey to the Super Bowl is suddenly a strong possibility.
But so is utter disaster.
