Orange Colored Glasses: As many questions as answers
“In the playoffs they won’t be facing Ryan Fitzpatrick and Nate Washington. Those guys won’t be there – for a reason.”
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Nobody should be surprised that Peyton Manning did what he did yesterday, throwing for nearly four-hundred yards and four touchdowns. I predicted that he would do precisely that in my Sunday morning piece.
The writing was on the wall all week long. Everybody knew that it would be cold outside on Sunday and that Manning and his co-conspirators, Adam Gase and Broncos PR, planned to take advantage and to discredit the naysayers. That’s precisely what was done. Peyton was great. He threw short, he threw long, he the frozen football all over the field in a second-half romp. Now everybody knows that, despite historical evidence to the contrary, Manning is capable of playing brilliantly in the cold.
Fifty-one is a bundle of points. But the Broncos make scoring that many look downright routine. It cannot be emphasized enough that what we are witnessing is going to stick with us for eons to come. This is no ordinary season. This is no ordinary team. Manning and company are smashing records and by the time the 2013 regular season is in the books there will need to be added a whole new chapter to the annals of the NFL. This is an offense that we will tell our grand children about. Each and every one of these final regular season games will be one to be remembered.
Four touchdown passes to an ordinary quarterback are an anomaly. To Peyton Manning they’re an expectation. His targets are the best in the NFL by far and the ways in which he located them leave defenses guessing. Cover one, expose another. Cover them all and Denver’s running game will eat your defense alive. It is a thing of football beauty.
But that doesn’t mean that the Broncos will win the Super Bowl.
Even in this modern era when the passing game reigns supreme you are leaving victories to chance without an effective defense. As intent as the Broncos were yesterday on answering Peyton Manning’s doubters, their lack of a pass rush and inability to slow down a pedestrian offense in the first half has to leave fans wondering if this team’s ceiling is high enough to win a championship. In the playoffs they won’t be facing Ryan Fitzpatrick and Nate Washington. Those guys won’t be there – for a reason.
Peyton Manning is the Broncos’ fallback. There will be times, though, when the Broncos’ offense struggles and the defense needs to rise up, get a crucial stop, force a turnover or sack the quarterback for a loss. If a good team – like the Bengals for instance – gets hot and manages to stop Manning a time or two in the post-season – and forces him to play from behind – the margin for error could be too small and the Broncos could repeat the disappointment of last year’s playoff loss to the Ravens.
That Ravens game will not go away until the Broncos advance to the Super Bowl. Like it or not, it remains Peyton Manning’s legacy in Denver. Nobody wants that to be the case, but harsh realities are par for the course in the NFL.
That loss is pinned on Peyton Manning even though it probably should not be. He’s the quarterback and that’s how it works. Earlier this season Colts’ owner Jim Irsay cracked wise about Peyton’s “Star Wars numbers” and Indy’s lack of success in the post-season. Broncos Country would love to see Irsay eat those words, but in the meanwhile they echo in our heads.
The Broncos won yesterday and they won big. It’s odd that I woke up this morning thinking of these things. But I realize (like we all do) that the 2013 regular season is but a tune-up for the playoffs. Denver should be well-positioned thanks to wins like the one they scored versus the Titans yesterday. If they lose another game we will all be surprised and they sure as hell won’t lose two more. A record of 13-3 is the worst we will see. But the fact that the Broncos continually start slowly, fall behind, and lean on Peyton Manning to post surreal numbers in order to bring them back prompts a lot of questions.
The Broncos addressed one worry yesterday. Can Manning score in the cold? You bet he can. But can he also struggle? Well, we knew the answer to that question already. The new question is whether or not the defense can hold up its end of the bargain when and if he does.
The New England Patriots have demonstrated week after week that they can pull out wins under the strangest of circumstances – that they are a team of destiny that can survive almost anything. Assuming that they are the largest barrier between the Broncos and a Super Bowl then the Broncos will need to lean on more than just #18 to get it done.
