Sports Then and Now

Peyton Manning will retire as a two–time Super Bowl champion.

Despite rumors in recent days that he wasn’t ready to hang up his cleats, multiple media outlets are now reporting that Peyton Manning will indeed announce his retirement on Monday after 17 NFL seasons.

While the 2015 season included some chinks in Manning’s tightly constructed public persona, you cannot argue Manning’s overall success on the field and that he will go down as one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.

Regardless of whether you think the Broncos won Super Bowl 50 in spite of Manning, rather than because of him, on the football field he was able to finish in a way that everyone dreams of, as a Super Bowl Champion.

Critics of Manning seemingly took pleasure in pointing out that his 2015 season with just 9 touchdowns and 17 interceptions was among the worst-ever for a Super Bowl quarterback. They seemed to have forgotten that for his fist 16 seasons Manning was a quarterback with few statistical equals.

During each of his first 16 NFL seasons, Manning tossed at least 26 touchdown passes every year, including nine seasons with 30+ touchdowns and an NFL record 55 touchdowns in 2013. He will retire as the NFL career leader with 539 career touchdown passes and 71, 940 career passing yards.

He also will go down as one of the greatest regular season winners in NFL history having led his teams to 10+ victory seasons 14 times and boasting a regular season winning percentage above 70%.

There is no doubt that the competitor in Manning wanted to come back and finish his career with another high-quality regular season. However, given that he will be 40 years old later this month and struggled with multiple injuries over the last year and a half, in the end sticking around really wasn’t a practical option.

Much like Brett Favre five years ago, Manning is having a hard time walking away. However, unlike Favre, Manning is going out with his second Super Bowl trophy in hand. Read the rest of this entry →

Now that he has a new contract and one of the best tight ends in football, Russell Wilson should be headed to a big season in 2015.

With the NFL season just around the corner, America is getting excited. Thousands of people will pack stadiums around the country to root for their favorite teams, shops will be littered with excitable fans picking up their favorite star player’s Webobble custom sports bobbleheads or video games. Concession stands and restroom lines will make you feel like you’re actually waiting for the newest amusement park ride, but you do it all for the team! To get the NFL season started this year, we present some of this year’s NFL Favorites.

Seattle Seahawks
Last year’s runner up is this year’s favorite. The Seahawks boast (and what many consider to be) the league’s best defense. They’ve managed to keep together their core group of players and are still adding pieces to the puzzle. One of those pieces the Seahawks acquired this off season, is Jimmy Graham. Jimmy is one of the league’s best tight ends, and will surely add another dimension to Russel Wilson’s receiving arsenal.

Green Bay Packers
With the league’s best offense last year, Green Bay comes in at number two. The Packers had a disastrous collapse in last year’s NFC Championship game, and let the Seahawks sneak by them into the Super Bowl. Green Bay has locked up Aaron Rodgers’ and two favorite targets in multi-year deals, though the loss of Jordy Nelson to a season-ending knee injury will hurt. Fortunately, Rodgers still has Randall Cobb, who has emerged as an elite receiver,  along with powerful running back Eddie Lacy, who rushed for 1,139 yards and nine touchdowns last season. Read the rest of this entry →

Kam Chancellor and the Seattle Seahawks are just two wins away from repeating as Super Bowl champs.

We’re mere days from the NFL Conference Championships and you couldn’t ask for two better matchups. In the NFC, the conference’s top seeds face off in a grudge match between two teams that have battled repeatedly, and controversially, in the last few seasons. In the AFC, Tom Brady and Belichick are planning for Andrew Luck and the Colts, who are coming off a victory over Peyton Manning in what was possible his last game…ever.

According to Vegas, the home teams are clear favorites in both games. Odds at online sportsbook TopBet have the Patriots and Seahawks each favored by at least a touchdown, but there is more to these games than meets the eye.

Green Bay Packers at Seattle Seahawks

Aaron Rodgers is hurt, but he’s still the likely regular season MVP, and he just beat the Dallas Cowboys on one leg, throwing some of his most accurate passes of the year. Don’t count this man out.

The issue for the Packers against Seattle remains their run defense. The Seahawks ran all over the Packers in Week 1, putting up 207 yards, and while the Packers have (at times) found the ability to make plays against the run, most recently causing a key DeMarco Murray fumble, they are still unlikely to stop Marshawn Lynch from clearing the century mark. The Packers will need Rodgers to outscore Lynch if they hope to book their ticket to the Super Bowl. Read the rest of this entry →

Led by quarterback Tony Romo and running back DeMarco Murray the Dallas Cowboys seem to have their best chance at making a playoff run since the days of Emmitt Smith and Troy Aikman.

Technically the NFL trend of having at least five teams earn postseason bids after missing the playoffs the previous season held to form with the 2014 season, but there is something extremely familiar about all the teams vying to reach Super Bowl 49 (if the NFL isn’t going to use Roman Numerals for 50, I feel no obligation to use them for the upcoming game).

Six of the eight division champions for 2014 also won their division a year ago with Cincinnati yielding to Pittsburgh (though both teams are in the playoffs) and the Dallas Cowboys soaring past the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC East.

Surprisingly, the longest playoff droughts to end this season belong to the Cowboys and the Arizona Cardinals, who both last reached the playoffs in 2009. The Steelers and the Detroit Lions last reached the playoffs following the 2011 season.

After winning the Super Bowl following the 2012 campaign, the Baltimore Ravens missed the postseason in 2013, but are now in the playoffs for the sixth time in the last seven years.

The four teams receiving a bye should be of little surprise, though in our “what have you done for me lately” society all four were written off at some point during the season.

Both the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots were sold down the river before the season had reached October, only to both rebound for 12 win seasons.

The defending champion Seattle Seahawks looked vulnerable after three early season losses and some less than inspiring offensive performances, but recovered to again win the NFC West and earn home field advantage throughout the playoffs.

Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos looked powerful early, but seemed to lose some of their offensive compulsion in the final six weeks of the campaign and “limped” to a 12 win season, though that does represent the lowest victory total in Manning’s three seasons with the team.

The first weekend of playoff games should be quite interesting as each game has an interesting storyline.

The first game of the weekend will feature a team on their third quarterback traveling to face a team that finished the season with a losing record and actually had to win their last four games just to reach the postseason. The Carolina Panthers won five fewer games than in 2013, but surprisingly became the first team to repeat as NFC South champions since the division formed in 2002. Their opponents, the Arizona Cardinals, looked like a Super Bowl contender before losing their top two quarterbacks and leading rusher. Even with their third quarterback they seem to be a superior squad to the Panthers, but this will likely be a hard fought game where the home field could be enough to help Carolina pull out a win.
Read the rest of this entry →

At age 37 and just two years removed from major neck surgery, Peyton Manning is having arguably the finest season of his career.

After watching Peyton Manning toss four more touchdown passes against the Houston Texans to bring his season total to a new NFL record 51 with a game left in the season, it seems hard to believe that it was just 18 months ago that legitimate questions existed as to whether Manning would ever throw another pass in the NFL.

It is easy now to downplay the severity of his neck injury and the four surgeries that forced him to miss the entire 2011 season and put into play the events that have led him to Denver after spending his first 13 seasons in Indianapolis.

However, in the spring of 2012, it was not over-reacting to question if Manning would ever play in the NFL again, much less wonder if he could ever return to MVP form.

You might wonder now if the Indianapolis Colts might have made a different choice had they been able to look in their crystal ball and see that Manning was going to pass for 10,000 yards and 88 touchdown passes over the next two seasons. Would they have passed on quarterback of the future Andrew Luck to stay with the quarterback of the present in Peyton Manning?

I think if you ask Jim Irsay and the Colts, he would probably say “no”, and that his team made the difficult, but correct decision for the long-term success of his franchise.

Given that Luck has quickly developed into a top-12 NFL quarterback and has led the Colts to consecutive double digit-win seasons and playoff appearances, you have to believe him.

Plus, Irsay saw first-hand what can happen when the team no longer has the services of Manning during their 2-14 disaster campaign of 2011. So even though Manning has been the better player over these two seasons, I’m not sure he would have helped the Colts win many more games and at age 37, he has only so many more seasons left before he rides off into the sunset. Read the rest of this entry →

As we took off into the second quarter of the season (for most teams), the fascinating phenomena kept rolling in. Included in this week’s list is something that hasn’t happened to the New England offense in seven years, a first for any quarterback since the merger, the continuation of home dominance for one NFC North team, a record-tying day for one tight end and an offensive outburst in Dallas. Here are your Week 5 NFL headlines.

Travis Benjamin had a career night in the return game for the red-hot Browns.

The Browns scored their first rushing touchdown of the season (and it wasn’t Trent Richardson) in their fifth game and stayed perfect when starting quarterback Brian Hoyer as they beat the Bills, 37-24, on Thursday night. They did, however, lose Hoyer for the season with a partially torn ACL suffered early in the game. Cleveland punt returner, Travis Benjamin, tied a franchise record with 166 punt return yards in the win for the first-place Browns. Their 37 points were the most they have scored in a game since putting up 41 back in 2009. Since Week 3, they are averaging 28.3 points per game after averaging eight points per game in the first two weeks.

The Patriots fell from the ranks of the unbeaten and the Bengals improved to 6-22 against the AFC East since 1998 as New England managed only six points in the 13-6 loss. The six points were the fewest for the high-powered New England offense since being shut out on Dec. 10, 2006, 21-0, in Week 14 against Miami. The Bengals’ 5-22 record had been the third-worst against one division in that span. Andy Dalton’s first-quarter interception in the red zone was the first red-zone pick of his career. Tom Brady fell two short of the all-time record for consecutive games with a touchdown pass as he failed to record one in game No. 53. The Pats had won 63 straight games when allowing 13 points or less with their last such loss coming in 2001. Read the rest of this entry →