After The AFC Championship Peyton Manning Told Belichick That This Is Probably His Last Rodeo

I almost left this blog for Dave because I figured he’d have more anger or hatred to get everyone riled up, but he didn’t either. In fact, does anyone truly hate Peyton? I know we got up in arms about the HGH thing, but my outrage there was more directed at the NFL and media. I said from the beginning that I never actually cared about Peyton juicing, just the way it was covered and pursued.

All things considered, I’ve always found Peyton to be a pretty tough guy to truly hate. He’s a great quarterback who’s a bit of a dork but pretty much owns that. He does his dad joke commercials and makes corny press conference jokes and is generally just himself, which isn’t really an awful guy. It’s difficult to HATE that with the fire that you hate, say, a Ray Lewis or Terrell Suggs. In a weird way I’ve almost pitied Peyton for most of his career, more than anything. He was one of the greatest of all time who was practically a laughing stock simply because he had the misfortune of being born in the Brady/Belichick era, his face was always stuck in that permanent stupid look, and everyone made fun of him because his retarded brother had more rings than him. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t losing sleep for the multi-millionaire, but you gotta be a real dickhead to despise the sad sack.

So I’ll give a gentlemanly tip of the cap to Peyton here. I wish we left his dead body out on the field at Mile High, but I can’t help but respect a guy who’s not making a big show of it. Doesn’t need the gifts and applause from every stadium, just a quiet, whispered goodbye followed by a “You’re a great competitor” and a pat on the back from his greatest foe.