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Two seasons after that, he wasn’t in much better shape, ailing with an arch injury that cost him half the season and what was left of his limited mobility. Not three years later, Manning threw 55 touchdown passes - that record still stands as the most in a season - and started in the Super Bowl for the Broncos. Helton laughed because he thought Manning was joking. Manning’s first toss went about 5 yards before fluttering to the ground. Weeks after the second operation, Manning snuck off to a Colorado Rockies batting cage to throw with his old UT buddy, Todd Helton. He ushered in an era that turned the reading of the Xs and Os from an art to a science, setting the template for a modern-day passing game very much reliant on pre-snap reads that lead to quick decisions and allow the smartest of quarterbacks to get out of bad plays before they happen.Īll those smarts, of course, belied a physical gift that allowed Manning to play for 18 years, including a comeback from four delicate neck surgeries that left him unable to grip a football at first. “He redefined the quality of the work that’s expected of the people around him.” “He redefined preparation,” Cutcliffe said during a 2013 interview. One-time University of Tennessee assistant David Cutcliffe says he knew Manning was something special when the quarterback, in advance of his freshman year, took three pages’ worth of handwritten notes on a base play the Vols ran called 62 Meyer. And when everyone’s seeing it through the same set of eyes, it’s a great way to play football.” “You want to make sure everything’s a reflection of how you see the game and you want to make sure everyone’s on the same page. “Like any great quarterback, there’s a lot of responsibility that you take on,” Brady said this week in reflecting on Manning’s place in the game. Still, he’s well aware of Manning’s role in making the modern-day passing game what it is today. Brady, playing in his 10th Super Bowl on Sunday, has shut the door on the GOAT debate, and with a win will join Manning as the second quarterback to lead two franchises to a title. When Manning retired after leading the Broncos to the title in 2016, he had the career records for passing yardage (71,940) and touchdowns (539), among others, and was part of the conversation as Greatest Of All Time.ĭrew Brees and Tom Brady have eclipsed those numbers. The end game came on Sundays, for 14 seasons with the Indianapolis Colts, then four more with the Denver Broncos, when he barked “Omaha, Omaha!!” at the line of scrimmage - we still don’t know what it means - then went about dissecting defenses en route to 186 regular-season victories, a still-record five MVP awards and two Super Bowl titles in four trips. His work in the video room, his “voluntary” offseason throw-and-catch sessions with receivers, his quizzing of coaches and teammates alike during practices - all were the stuff of legend. That’s fitting, in a way, because more than any quarterback before him, he used every minute of his preparation during the week, and then every second at the line of scrimmage during the games, doing all he could to eliminate doubt about the result of every play before it happened.

Manning going into the hall was all but preordained. Jaguars left tackle Tony Boselli and Dolphins linebacker Zach Thomas were among the finalists whose names were not called. The winners’ names were made public at the NFL Honors awards ceremony Saturday night. Manning found out a few days later, with his coaches and his family delivering the news. In a nod to COVID-19, the voters eschewed their traditional all-day meeting Saturday in favor of a virtual gathering on Jan.