ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Former Broncos great quarterback John Elway walked away from football at age 38 as a Super Bowl champion for the second time in his career. Elway retired after Super Bowl XXXIII, rode off into the fairy-tale sunset on top — en route to enormous entrepreneurial off-the-field success.
Current Broncos great quarterback Peyton Manning is 37, and he is one AFC Championship Game win over the Patriots Sunday away from having the chance to win the second Super Bowl title of his brilliant career.
Is it possible Manning pulls an Elway and walks away if he and the Broncos win Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium?
Elway, pondering that question during a sit-down round-table interview Thursday at the Broncos training facility, said: “You know, I don’t know. I still think he’s young and he’s playing well. That’s going to come down to Peyton. It’s going to come down to what he wants to do.
“We’ll sit down after the season and find out where he is and what his thinking is. But to be where we are right now and talk to him about the future, I don’t think is productive right now.”
Manning has dropped hints in recent interviews his career is nearing its end in the context of the importance of taking advantage of this playoff opportunity because he doesn’t know when — or if — he’ll have another chance at winning a Super Bowl.
He, however, deftly never says definitively one way or another whether he plans to return next year — although given his outlandish production in 2013, it would seen preposterous if he does not.
Elway, the Broncos vice president of football operations, conceded, as Manning himself has, “the sun is starting to set’’ on Manning’s career. Yet he said he has a difficult time envisioning a quarterback who threw an NFL-record 55 touchdown passes and 5,477 yards this season walking away.
“I can’t imagine him not throwing 55 touchdown passes and 5,400 yards,’’ Elway said. “I guarantee you if I was in his shoes, I would have enjoyed it. I’m sure he is still enjoying it, and he’s on a good football team, which also late in your career, is crucial.
“Having been a football player before, when you leave this game, you want to leave it on your last leg, and try not to leave anything on the table,’’ Elway continued. “Anybody that’s a competitor, that’s kind of the way they want to leave the game. I was just fortunate to be able to be on two great football teams and be able to win world championships (in 1998 and ’99) when my last leg broke.”
Manning is in his second season with the Broncos after enduring extreme uncertainty about his future following a serious neck injury, which required surgery and months of rehab after the 2010 season. It cost him the entire 2011 season.
Asked on Thursday if it is difficult to block out thoughts of his future and how he wants his career to end, Manning said: “I really don’t think it’s hard to block that out. As a matter of fact, I think it’s probably even easier to just hone in on what’s taking place right now. That has been my approach since the beginning of last season.
“You don’t take this for granted — especially when you’ve been through a major change and you’re in the home stretch of your career. When you go through a significant injury and have a major career change, you truly do go one year at a time and you don’t look past what’s going on now, because you are not sure what’s going to happen. Tomorrow is not promised.’’