Everyone's got an opinion about Broncos' Peyton Manning amid early struggles
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The flood of voices declaring Peyton Manning’s career dead continues to rise on television and social media with every throw the 39-year-old Denver Broncos quarterback makes (and especially the ones he misses) serving as some sort of referendum on whether or not the five-time NFL MVP should continue playing.
This is the new reality of watching Manning in 2015.
As the oldest starting quarterback in league, after an offseason in which he took a $4 million pay cut and was asked to learn a foreign offense, everything about Manning and his team is up for debate, especially in nationally televised games like Week 2's victorious road escape from the Kansas City Chiefs and Sunday night's visit to the Detroit Lions.
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A poorly thrown interception — of which there have already been several this season — surely must be a sign that Manning’s right arm is dead, right? Or could a game-tying touchdown drive, with 75 passing yards in less than two minutes — exactly what Manning orchestrated amid the din of Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium — be proof that things might be just fine after all?
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Even Manning’s former coach, Tony Dungy, finds himself looking for signs.
“I try to take the big picture, but I do see some throws where I say, ‘Jeez, I've never seen him miss that throw before,' " Dungy, who coached Manning with the Indianapolis Colts from 2002 through 2008, told USA TODAY Sports.
Though the Broncos are 2-0, thanks in part to the league's second-ranked defense, the offensive statistics are grim and so very un-Manninglike. Denver ranks last in yards gained, 26th in passing and only in the middle of the pack (11th) in scoring, largely because of kicker Brandon McManus and a pair of defensive touchdowns.
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Manning’s completion percentage (58.8 %), passer rating (74.2) and yards per attempt (5.1) are well below his career averages. Perhaps most startling, he has yet to complete a throw beyond 25 yards. He’s overthrown a couple, including two in the end zone in Week 1 against the Baltimore Ravens. Other times, he's just missed.
“You overthrow them in Week 1. Maybe you take a little off, and you underthrow them Week 2. I’d like to find that happy medium,” Manning said.
Still, each misfire is fodder for debate and shapes the conversation surrounding Manning. It’s a different way of consuming sports and forming opinions than athletes experienced prior to the social media age, said Daniel Durbin, director of the Annenberg Institute of Sports, Media and Society at the University of Southern California.
“The activities that fans may have engaged in privately 20 years ago — like talking about the game, or analyzing the game with friends, or talking about your favorite players — those private activities are now public activities on Twitter and Snapchat and Instagram, where people are carrying on conversations that once had been private and now are public,” Durbin said.
“And that has changed the nature of people's experience of the sport, because once you jump on to Twitter or Instagram, you're engaged in potentially an international conversation.”
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The challenge comes trying to interpret that conversation and seeking meaningful analysis amid the noise. In the case of Manning, that can change drive to drive. After he threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown in the first half against the Chiefs, Twitter was alight with opinions that he couldn’t play anymore. Three touchdown passes later, did those statements hold up?
“That's part of what social media is about, giving everyone a voice to have an endless conversation. But that does degrade the conversation because you have so few (character) strokes you can use and so little you can say. And with that little to say, you tend to have to be as bombastic as possible to get noticed and being first overrides any concern of being accurate,” Durbin said.
“The analysis on social media isn't really analysis. It's people making definitive statements.”
Dungy avoids the throw-by-throw scrutiny that occurred online during the Broncos’ first two games. Sunday, he’ll be in the NBC Sports studio as an analyst when Manning takes on the Lions. Maybe it’s easier for Dungy because he knows Manning so well and has seen him overcome such hyper-analysis before.
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It happened during and immediately following Denver’s Week 2 game in 2012, Manning's second game with the Broncos after missing his final season with the Colts in 2011 following neck surgery. In front of a national audience on a Monday night in Atlanta, Manning was picked off three times by the Falcons in the first quarter.
It was easy even then to declare he would never return to form. (Yet he went on to be an all-pro in 2012 before winning his fifth MVP while breaking single-season records for passing yards and touchdowns the next season.)
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“Oh I remember it well,” Dungy said, laughing. “And I remember people calling for Jimmy Garoppolo after the New England game against Kansas City last year. So I think that's the lesson.
"You just have to see, and let the coaches tweak it and let this come to fruition a little bit here. I think what I saw, especially in those two-minute drives — especially in Kansas City — would lead me to believe there is a lot of scoring punch in that Denver offense, and there is a lot left in Manning.”
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Follow Lindsay H. Jones on Twitter @bylindsayhjones