Make no mistake: Peyton Manning IS Denver, and here's why

Peyton Manning grew up in New Orleans, went to college in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and spent 14 years in central Indiana, where a wing of a hospital is named for him and a statue of him sits outside downtown Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium. Every stop he made on his life’s path is a part of who he is — and will remain so forever.

Yet he belongs to Denver.

The man who retired as the NFL’s all-time leader in touchdown passes and passing yardage — although both standards were surpassed by Tom Brady and Drew Brees in the five seasons after his retirement from playing — could have lived anywhere he wanted as he and his wife Ashley settled into raising their two children.

He and his family chose Denver.

Manning has become as Colorado as 14ers, microbrews and green chile. He’s not a native, but he is an unofficial ambassador for the Centennial State and the Mile High City.

That was clear when he joined a Zoom conference with a few dozen reporters from around the nation Wednesday afternoon to discuss his upcoming induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame — the time when Manning joins his new team, that of the game’s immortals. He will enter the Hall of Fame on the same weekend as fellow Broncos Ring of Famers Steve Atwater and John Lynch, as well as longtime Indianapolis teammate Edgerrin James.

Being honored on the same weekend as those with whom he shares a team and a legacy means a great deal to Manning, a historian and reverent steward of the game he cherishes so deeply.

But being connected to Denver and the Broncos matters, too.

He would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer and a member of the NFL 100 even if he had walked away from the sport after the 2011 season, when multiple neck surgeries left his career in doubt. He had no feeling in the fingertips of his throwing hand. His legacy was secure.

But quitting then wasn’t an option to one of the fiercest competitors to play any professional sport anywhere on the planet — even though the Colts cut him to make way for Andrew Luck, a generational quarterback prospect who fell into the Colts’ laps after they lumbered through a 2-14 disaster in 2011 while Manning could only watch, helpless to save his drowning team.

“I certainly wanted to play for the Indianapolis Colts my entire career, because they were the team that drafted me, and I think every player should have that goal,” Manning said. “It doesn’t happen very much anymore, but I was fascinated by John Elway being only a Bronco, Dan Marino being only a [Miami] Dolphin, [Troy] Aikman, Cowboys. My dad, drafted by New Orleans, the majority of his career, lived in New Orleans. So, that was my plan all along and then just things change, things happen.”

“So, that was my plan all along and then just things change, things happen.”

He went into free agency in March 2012 surrounded by questions — and carrying many of his own.

“Denver took a chance on me,” he said. “I’ll never forget it, because there was a dicey time here where nobody quite sure — including me — knew what was going to happen, and it ended up being a great place to go.”

And as Manning noted, it started with Elway, the Broncos’ president of football operations at the time. The Broncos were in decent shape; John Fox, then the head coach, had a promising defense with stars Von Miller, Elvis Dumervil and Champ Bailey, with Miller arriving as the No. 2 overall pick the previous year. That defense, plus the inexplicable comebacks led by Tim Tebow the previous year, had allowed Elway to guide a battered franchise back to its feet.

The Broncos weren’t going any further with a passer completing only 46 percent of his attempts. Manning gave them an opportunity for greatness. But first, Elway, Fox and the Broncos had to sell Manning on their vision.:

“Denver, they just — boy, they just welcomed me with open arms. They were the only team that understood what I was going through emotionally, physically. And I think a lot of that was [John] Elway. Elway flirted with going to other teams, rumors and whatnot. I think he knew how that could have affected him. He certainly knew injuries.”

Elway also knew offensive schemes, and how the right one could tap into a quarterback’s potential. Elway didn’t have the right scheme until Jim Fassel came along as Denver’s offensive coordinator in 1993, 10 years into his career. Manning never had that issue with the Colts, whose offense was guided by the sage Tom Moore.

The Broncos didn’t have Moore. They had a scheme whose nomenclature was rooted in the Ron Erhardt/Ray Perkins verbiage used by the Patriots and brought to the Broncos by Josh McDaniels beginning in 2009. As shown by Tom Brady, this scheme works for quarterbacks.

There was a middle ground between what Manning knew and what the Broncos had already learned, and Elway knew that finding it would be a key to landing No. 18. They met him halfway. And that set the Broncos apart in the pursuit of Manning.

“They were the only team … that said, ‘Hey, Peyton, give us your Indianapolis Colts’ playbook, we’ll form this hybrid offense with plays that we like here in Denver that we think will help you at this point in your career. We’ll form this mesh of an offense and really give you a chance to get back going again, and not every other team was doing that,” Manning recalled.

“So, I will always be indebted to Denver with [John] Fox, Elway, [Mike] McCoy, [Adam] Gase for helping me in that transition. Just had a wonderful four years playing there.”

But it became more than just four years. Nearly five-and-a-half years have passed since Manning’s “last rodeo” in Super Bowl 50. He still calls Denver home. He is a regular at Broncos headquarters; whenever he needs to shoot a social-media video for his alma mater or record audio for the “Detail” series on ESPN+, he returns to UCHealth Training Center.

He watches practices from time to time. He gave a full day to Drew Lock to provide pointers and help him along. He rarely misses a home game — unless a pandemic intervenes.

Manning’s a Bronco, and he is Denver.

“Moving’s a pain,” Manning said. “I still have a great relationship with Indianapolis and still very involved in their community just like I am in Knoxville and New Orleans, but you can only live in one place and Denver has just been a great place to live.

“I really have enjoyed being a part of the community, and really couldn’t have made a better decision to go out there and play back in 2012.”

Yep, Manning is Denver.

BUT DOES HE WANT TO BE A PART OF OWNING THE BRONCOS?

He was asked point-blank about that matter. He didn’t say, “Yes” … but he didn’t say, “No,” either.

“Well, certainly, look: Living in Denver, I’m very much a Broncos ambassador, fan, season-ticket holder. I’ve been to every game the past five years since I’ve retired that fans were allowed to go to, so, I’m certainly as interested in what’s going to happen as anybody, because I care about it — just like I care about the Indianapolis Colts, University of Tennessee, you name it.

“So, Mike [Klis], as I’ve told you before, I’ve kind of gone sort of on a year-to-year basis in this second chapter. I’m going to try to do this this year, right? And I don’t really go past that very much, because you try different things and maybe you like it, maybe you don’t. I never knew I’d be a game-show host, I can promise you that. If you guessed that’s what I was going to do after football a few years ago, you would have been crazy. …

“Look, being part of the game is important to me. I’ve found different ways to be involved with it. Doing these things for ESPN, the Peyton’s Places, the history of the game — that’s been a blast. Getting to watch film with Joe Namath and Raymond Berry, I mean, that’s a dream come true for a football junkie like me. But I’ll always be a part of the Colts and Broncos organizations in some way.

“But obviously I’m interested in what’s going to happen [with the ownership of the Broncos]. I haven’t said, ‘No,’ to anything officially forever. I’ve just said, ‘No,’ to some things each year. The next year maybe things change. So, who knows what will happen in that but it [football] is going to be a part of my life forever, in my opinion.”