Peyton Manning is at what we might call the “pantheon” level
of sports iconography. This makes almost everything he does okay and puts his
reputation above the level of reproach. The fact he has only won one Super
Bowl, that he is a shill for just about any product offered to him (including a
pretty average pizza brand), that he so often lost to his closest rival Brady
and that his skills set has been on the decline for two years seems to be
ignored in exploring his overall position in the history of the sport. Sure,
there has been criticism of his performance on the field this season, but never
of the man himself. Don’t get be wrong, Peyton Manning is one of the greatest
regular season quarterbacks in the history of the league and did solidify his
legacy when he won his sole Super Bowl in 2007. He has ripped apart the record
books and has a career rating of 96.5 (fourth on the all-time list), along with
a 65.3% completion percentage, 539 TDs versus 251 INTs and 71,940 yards. In the
nine years QBR statistics have been kept, Manning had a 78.91 average, forgoing
the terrible 45 he garnered in this injury-plagued year. His overall regular
season record is 186-79 and 45-12 since he moved to Denver, including a Super
Bowl appearance in a record setting season two years ago. His playoff record of
11-13 is where many find the biggest hole in his CV and why talk of him as the
“greatest ever” seems suspect at best.
The point is Manning has had an incredible career that
could, if things go his way, end with another trip to the Super Bowl to end
this troubled season. Yet that is not the biggest story about Manning. A story
from Al Jazeera over the holidays claimed that he might have taken HGH to help
him on the road to recovery after the neck injuries that almost derailed his
career. He came back from that injury, of course, moved on from the Colts to
the Broncos and went on to have one of the best, if not the best), single
seasons by a quarterback in NFL history. That that year didn’t end in a Super
Bowl triumph but a blowout loss to the Seahawks took some of the luster from
his comeback, but might also have allayed some questions about how exactly he
did make it back with such aplomb. In any case, the story from Al Jazeera was
quickly dismissed by everyone from Fox News to Manning to the league itself.
And then, in one of the more bizarre events in recent years, the story died
completely. There was no mention of it when Manning reentered the game and led
the Broncos to victory last Sunday and little mention of it on sports radio or
television since.
So what gives? Is the well-respected, corporate-sponsored
Manning simply being given a pass? Why, for example, has no one besides The
Nation even mentioned that he hired a guy named Ari Fleischer, yeah THAT Ari
Fleischer, to serve as his PR representative on the matter? Why has no one
followed up on the fact that Manning did admit a “private” package did arrive
for his wife from the suspect Guyer Institute? The first thing so many athletes
we later found out did cheat do is deny the allegations with indignant
reproach. That is exactly what Manning did, the first time anyone has seen this
guy angry since Brady ripped apart his Broncos last season – and that ire was
largely covered by his helmet. Manning might very well be innocent of these
charges but, given the level of cheating across all professional sports from
bicycling and track to football and baseball, shouldn’t this story have at
least a little more life to it? Fox News and others disparaged the story
because of its source, claiming Al Jazeera is a hack, leftist outlet that is
doing Al Gore’s bidding. While there is a connection between the two, and Al
Jazeera has been criticized for some of its biases, it also was arguably the
company that gave us the best coverage of the Iraq war, of the Arab Spring and
what is really going on in the Middle East.
Should more questions be asked of
the story and of Manning? Is it beyond the scope of reason that an aging
quarterback looking for one more Super Bowl ring might dip into the alluring
world of Human Growth Hormones along the road to recovery? Why would the
originator of the story have lied when he did not know he was being taped only
to change his story when he discovered he was? Again, I’m not saying he ever
took HGH, I just do think a double standard appears to be emerging. And I have
to wonder if race, corporate and NFL interests and his reputation have anything
to do with it …
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