Both 18-year veteran Peyton Manning and golden boy Tom Brady have seen their share of success over their respective careers; usually having to go through one another to achieve greatness. It only seems fitting that what might be the final matchup between legends would be their fifth showdown for an AFC title.
The thought of playing in such a big game still gives the old gun slinger butterflies in his stomach.
“Sure. It’s normal and it’s natural. If you didn’t have those, it would probably mean that you don’t care as much or you didn’t care about the outcome,” Manning stated at the podium Wednesday. “I think it’s healthy to be excited and to have a lot of enthusiasm and have some juice in you. That’s what Coach Kubiak encourages us to have this week. I think it’s important that we bring that to the practice field and certainly bring that to the playing field on Sunday.”
Both Manning and Brady are looking to further cement their place in history Sunday. Brady has a chance to appear in his seventh Super Bowl and Manning looks to ride off into the orange sunset just like Broncos icon John Elway, the man who is responsible for bringing the Sheriff to Denver in the first place. And while there may have been some trash talk between the two teams early in the week, Manning didn’t hesitate to sing the praises of his counterpart.
“Tom and I have obviously played against each other over the years and have had a chance to spend some time, not a great deal, but sometime in the offseason at the Pro Bowl or some type of event that brought us together,” number 18 told. “Like I said, I’ve just got great respect for the way he plays the position. He takes care of himself physically and always answers the bell every single season and every single week. There’s definitely high respect from me and I appreciate some of the things he’s said about me as well.”
Brady has an 11-5 advantage when it comes to overall wins in the series but Denver is the only place in the NFL that the Brady has a losing record at 2-6, including 0-2 in the postseason. Manning and Co. are looking to make it three playoff wins in a row for the Broncos Sunday afternoon. Denver’s players and staff know what they must do to secure a trip to Super Bowl 50.
“The challenge with Brady is he’s one of the best quarterbacks playing in the National Football League,” Broncos pro-bowl linebacker Von Miller said. “Sometimes he doesn’t even need an offensive line. It’s just that connection with TE Rob Gronkowski, the connection with [Patriots WR] Julian Edelman and with [Patriots WR] Danny Amendola and all of the receivers that he has is just instantaneous. It’s just, ‘Hut,’ and boom, pass right now. Half of the time, he doesn’t even need a pass protection. He’s doing most of it himself. We’re going to have to be tight in the secondary, which I expect us to be. We will have to get a pass rush every down because you never know what opportunity is going to present itself for you to go and make a big play.”
Look, it’s obvious that the Orange and Blue have respect for the Patriots organization; they have earned the right to be held in such high regard. The home town team will have to play lights out for 60 minutes in order to take down the defending champs.
“I’ve always kind of given the boring answer, ‘Hey, it’s the Colts versus the Patriots and now it’s the Broncos versus the Patriots,’,” Manning stated. “All I can say about Tom Brady is he plays the position the way it’s supposed to be played. He’s extremely talented. He’s a very hard worker, very competitive guy and he just plays the position the right way. When you do that, there’s a reason you play for a long time and play well for a long time. There have been a lot of different players that have played in 16 of those games but as the quarterback, it’s always been a great honor and privilege to have competed against him that many times over the course of the past 16, 17 years he and I have been in the league together.”
Sunday will mark the 17th time that Manning and Brady will square off in their illustrious careers; could this be the last?
