Do you think he'll retire if the Broncos win?
1. Manning will retire if he wins
This, from Peyton Manning, when asked if this is his last game, sounds logical. It makes sense. It's smart:
"I know that there have been a number of players who have walked away as champions," Manning said. "I’m sure that it is a great feeling for those people. John Elway. Ray Lewis did it last year. And Michael Strahan. In talking to Ray Lewis, and talking to John Elway, they couldn’t play anymore. It was all they had to give. They truly left it all out there. I certainly had a career change two years ago with my injury and with changing teams. I’ve been truly on a one-year-at-a-time basis.
"So, I really have no plans beyond this game. I had no plans, coming into this season, beyond this year. I think that it is the healthy way to approach your career at this stage. I still enjoy playing football. I feel a little better than I thought I would at this point, coming off that surgery. I still enjoy the preparation part of it, the work part of it. Everybody enjoys the games. Everybody is going to be excited to play in a Super Bowl. When you still enjoy the preparation and the work part of it, I think you ought to be still doing that. I think as soon as I stop enjoying it, if I can’t produce, if I can’t help a team, that’s when I will stop playing. If that’s next year, then maybe it is. I certainly want to continue to keep playing."
Typical Manning: smart, measured, on point. It's also bull.
I don't believe it for a second, and I can tell you few people around the NFL believe it. Almost everyone thinks Manning is gone if he wins and plays well in the victory. In fact, many believe Manning is gone, win or lose.
The belief around football is that Manning is saying he hasn't made up his mind because he doesn't want to be the story of Super Bowl week. Imagine the pressure on the Broncos if Manning came out and said, "Yeah, I'm gone after this, dude. See ya." It would be one of the biggest stories in Super Bowl history. Manning is a lot smarter than that.
Manning, maybe more than any other player I've interviewed (with the possible exception of Jim Brown), understands history. He understands the optics of how things look. He knows how hard it is to reach a Super Bowl and that the odds of reaching consecutive Super Bowls are even higher.
Optics and history—Manning gets both. If he wins this Super Bowl, it's likely a significant number of media and others will say he's the best ever (I think it's John Elway or Tom Brady, but I digress). He'd go out on a super high. It would be almost impossible to duplicate
I gotta say, I am pulling for Manning and the Broncos. I like watching Peyton play, and he has never been in any trouble since being in the league. He's one of the better ones IMO.