“One of the most special moments of my career.” -Gary Kubiak
“The most emotional meeting.” -Derek Wolfe
“Just got us even more ready to go.” -Evan Mathis
“100 thousand dollar speeches.” -T.J. Ward
DeMarcus Ware might have a future in motivational speaking. When you see his eloquence in his handlings with the media it all makes sense. The one-time R&B singer is as smooth as velvet. So engaging.
Peyton Manning, well, you already know, he might be the most comfortable public speaker in the NFL.
All week long the Broncos (even Ware specifically) talked about how there wasn’t anything left to say, how if you weren’t already fired up and prepared for this stage there might be something wrong with you. But on Saturday night, the two wily veterans addressed their teammates and found the words to inspire their teammates to a greater degree, to make them dig even deeper than they ever thought possible.
“You can’t even put words to explain that,” said Derek Wolfe. “That was the most emotional meeting because it was already a long wait the last two and half weeks. That made this day and a half go longer than ever. You know just waiting because that speech was so powerful. You got two of the best to ever do it. Two Hall of Famers, first ballot, talking to you before Super Bowl 50. Super Bowl 50! That’s intense and it was an intense speech.”
Manning and Ware turned out to be the perfect contrasts, so perfect that Gary Kubiak canceled the Sunday morning meeting, knowing there really was no more to be said.
“I got a great vibe from it, a lot of emotion. All along, this has been a team that has played for each other and had each other’s back, regardless of the circumstances,” told Evan Mathis. “DeMarcus and Peyton got up there. Peyton started off and he was pretty funny, but he also got the point across. DeMarcus got up there. DeMarcus, he is a very serious speaker, a very emotional guy. You kind of get the chills listening to those guys talk. We were all ready to go, and that just got us even more ready to go.”
On the eve of the biggest game of their lives what was there to say? The exact messages will likely only ever be known by the men in that room that night and that makes the mystique of it all that much more powerful. We don’t have a video or a transcription or even a memory of any of it. All we have is the accounts of the men the speech touched and the proof in the proverbial pudding that is a shiny Lombardi Trophy heading back to the great state of Colorado.
“It was so moving just to hear from those two caliber of players and how long they’ve been doing this and at the level they’ve been doing this,” explained T.J. Ward. “Just to hear that passion in their voice and to still be that motivated and that hungry, you know, it just lit a spark under all of us. It wasn’t even like yelling or ‘Rah Rah.’ It was just talking to us. Peyton almost came to tears and D-Ware, he’s just motivational, period. It definitely sparked us.”
Like the bond fused by winning a Super Bowl Championship, these speeches will last forever for those that heard them. Each man affected in a different way.
“Those speeches definitely made me at peace because I knew that we have a family-oriented team,” Emmanuel Sanders told. “We have a team that is going to play for each other. We have a team that is built on love and it showed today.
“It was more spiritual than anything,” Sanders added of Manning’s portion of the moment. “How he’s so at peace with himself, so at peace with his spiritual life knowing that whatever comes of tomorrow, if it’s meant to be it’s meant to be, and it was meant to be.”
It was spiritual, it was powerful, it was funny, it was chill-inducing, it was life changing and it was Super Bowl Championship producing.
