Peyton Manning wants to avoid turning into Charles Barkley

by James on February 2nd, 2007

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Yeah, it is good to be me, but please give me a ring!

How would you like to be at the peak of your career? Not only that, but you would be compared to the all time greats and some people would think that you are the all time great. How would that be, huh?

Sounds great, doesn’t it. You can puff out your chest and give that ‘hey look at me’ look where you act kind of disinterested.

Look at me, Peyton Manning. But you don’t, because you are tall, good looking, strong, well spoken, almost the perfect spokesman for the NFL. You are confident in your abilities.

You are the Maestro directing your band in… the NFL offense of the Indianapolis Colts, often gesturing with your hands and shouting out commands to change plays or alignments at the last second.

But then you are reminded of the downside. If you lose this one game, that’s right, just lose this particular game and you will be turned into Charles Barkley. Your place in history will be determined in 4 quarters of Sunday’s game. It may even be determined in the last couple of minutes.

What? Is this some Cinderella story or something?

No. This is life for Peyton Manning. His legacy may be determined by this Super Bowl. Win it and you are one of the best of all time!

Lose it and you are Charles Barkley. A great player that never could seem to win the big one.

Is it fair? No. But it is reality.

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Peyton records galore

How can this be? Nine straight years of starting every game. Your worst year was your rookie season and you threw for 3,739 yards. As a rookie!

Oh, and that rookie set the NFL record for touchdown passes for a rookie with 26. Later, just for grins you had a season with 49 passes to break Dan Marino’s record. You also checked in with the NFL’s highest single season quarterback rating that year with 121.1.

That year, 2004, you went 5 straight games with at least 4 touchdown passes. 5, count em, 5 straight games. (wondering if my Lions have ever scored 4 touchdowns in one game)

You are second for consecutive starts including playoffs with 156 straight games. Unfortunately the guy ahead of you is Brett Favre and he has a Super Bowl ring. You need one.

Charles needs a ring

Now don’t get me wrong, Charles was a great player. He was amazing the way he could rebound without being the tallest player. Some say, he was only 6′ 4 and one half inches tall. How could he do it?

Charles won a Gold Medal with the Dream Team in the Olympics and played his heart out mostly for the Philadelphia 76ers, but he never could win an NBA championship. Consequently, he is not considered quite as good a player as most of the other dream teamers. This is a guy that had more than 20,000 points, 10,000 rebounds and 4,000 assists.

What about Rex?

The funny thing is that the other quarterback, Rex Grossman, has a lot of pressure on him as well. It is the pressure to not screw up. Yeah, strange isn’t it. Rex will have a great game if he does not mess up too many times. A different kind of pressure. If Rex is even average it will raise him up in the eyes of fans everywhere.

Peyton has to be better than average. He must win and be great or he is destined to be, oh that guy, you mean the Charles Barkley of the NFL.

NFL Football Fan Question Can Peyton get the job done? Is there more pressure on Rex Grossman?

As always, any NFL Football related comments are welcome.

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