RADIO
For the longest time, though he’d never admit it, Peyton Manning has had his sight set on Brett Favre’s career passing yards record. Both he and the country’s leading football analysts have always known it was only a matter of time before the record would be rightfully broken, but nobody could’ve imaged the way in which the event would take place.
Yup, Manning—undeniably one of the most accomplished quarterbacks to have ever played in the NFL—completed only 5 of twenty pass attempts for a measly 35 yards in a losing effort against the Alex Smith and the Kansas City Chiefs. When the final whistle was blown, yes Manning had broken Favre’s record, but he’d done so with a 0.0 passer rating.
Throughout the course of an 18-year career, there are bound to a few blemishes every now and again. That said, this is by far Manning’s worst performance to date. What could’ve caused such uncharacteristic inefficiency, you ask?
Well, many working within Denver’s camp feel that Manning’s ugly play might’ve had something to do with a foot injury that limited the quarterback’s practice activity this past week. As has almost always been the case, Manning took the high road and refused to blame his foot injury for his poor play.
After the game, said Manning per NFL Media’s James Palmer, "I thought I felt good enough to play. Maybe that was wrong. I thought I was good enough to help the team and ended up hurting the team.”
Clearly, Manning isn’t the quarterback he used to be. Knowing this made it even more difficult to watch as head coach Gary Kubiak opted to bench Manning in favor of backup quarterback Brock Osweiler.
Relatively speaking, Osweiler did about as well as he could’ve, considering the state of the offense he’d inherited in the third quarter of his team’s Week 10 matchup. In fact, the young quarterback out of Arizona State finished the game having gone 14-of-24 for 146 total yards with one passing touchdown and an interception.
So, is this really the end of Manning? Has the proverbial torch been passed? Though only time will tell, one thing is for certain—unfortunately, Manning can no longer be relied upon as a go-to starter for fantasy owners.
