Six up, six down. There couldn’t be a better start to a football season.
Except, there are problems. They haven’t blown out anybody, for one thing. The Hall of Fame quarterback hasn’t led the way to any 50-point games yet – or even one lousy 40-point game, for crying out loud.
And it has been the defense – not the fabled, high-power offense – that is mostly responsible for the perfect 6-0 mark.
Ring a bell?
It should, but in this instance we’re not talking about the Green Bay Packers.
The Packers’ next opponent, the Denver Broncos, are addressing more questions about what’s going wrong than they are taking bows for their perfect start.
The Broncos have beaten everybody, but they haven’t beaten anybody. Peyton Manning is toast; he’s an aging QB whose best days are behind him and he’s hanging on just so he can top Brett Favre’s career passing yards record. And so on. In other words, Peyton, what have you done for me lately?
If Manning is sticking around for personal accolades, it’s more likely that he’s trying to catch up to his little brother in Super Bowl rings.
Quarterback is a high-profile position, and if you happen to be a high-profile figure on top of it – say, you’ve become a pitch man who appears in one television commercial after another – these are the sort of tribulations awaiting you the moment your numbers start slipping.
There are thousands of football fans in Jacksonville, Chicago and Tampa who have come to grips with the fact that their football team is well-stocked with mediocrity and won’t be doing much this year. Those fans, arguably, can enjoy the season a lot more.
Free of any emotional investment, Jaguars and Bears fans won’t be punching any holes in the drywall or drop-kicking their schnauzer because their team performed poorly. A quiet shake of the head can say it all when your favorite team is bringing the awful.
Start the season by winning your first six games, though, and there is a decent chance that each of those six wins will be held under a microscope.
It is human nature to want it all, and then when you have it, to want more. Six-and-oh, yeah, whatever – but where are the blowouts? What’s wrong with this team?
Manning is getting skewered in some corners of Denver fandom because he is said to be showing the effects of 18 seasons, especially his arm. The knock on him is that he can’t throw long downfield anymore. Injuries and time have rendered him a fading star, a relic.
The most glaring statistic for Manning this year is his 10 interceptions and seven touchdown passes. Two seasons ago, Manning threw 10 picks all year, to go with 55 touchdown passes.
Of the 10 interceptions he’s thrown this year, three came last week in the Broncos’ overtime win over Cleveland, including one in the overtime period.
The Packers will see a diminished Peyton Manning when they take the stage in the rare showdown of 6-0 teams. Manning, who has been leapfrogged by the likes of Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady in the league hierarchy, does not closely resemble the quarterback who lifted the Indianapolis Colts from bottom-feeders to contenders.
But it would be a mistake to read his unspectacular numbers as an obituary. He has enough experience to give any team trouble regardless of how many of his throws are tight spirals.
Parity throughout today’s NFL has made any 6-0 start a rarity, which makes next week’s tango at Mile High Stadium a guaranteed swashbuckler – or at the very least, a gem for the marketing department.
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