Peyton Manning isn’t just wearing out opposing defenses. He’s also exhausting everyone’s list of superlatives to describe the truly remarkable season No. 18 is having at age 37 after four neck surgeries.
Manning entered uncharted territory with his 400 passing yards and four touchdowns in Sunday’s 37-13 throttling of the woeful Texans, becoming the first player in NFL history to throw for 5,000 yards and 50 TDs in the same season.
Not only that, but Manning’s fourth TD pass of the game also gave him 51 for the year, eclipsing Tom Brady’s record of 50 set in 2007 — with one game still to play.
Considering the 12-3 Broncos still have something very important to play for — the No. 1 seed in the AFC — in their regular-season finale against the lowly Raiders, look for Manning to pad his crazy numbers even further this Sunday.
Oakland’s pass defense is near the bottom in every major statistical category (you will recall the Raiders gave up seven TD passes to the Eagles’ Nick Foles), so that combined with the Broncos’ very real desire to avoid a possible trip to New England in the AFC title game creates the potential for some truly off-the-charts passing numbers by Manning this weekend.
The only surprising thing about Manning is he needed until this year — his 16th in the NFL — to reach the 5,000-yard passing mark in a single season (he has 5,211 at the moment). Drew Brees has done that three times, while Brady, Dan Marino and Matthew Stafford have done it once.
And if you think Manning is padding his passing totals late against bad teams, think again. Just five of his 51 TD passes have come with the Broncos up by 17 points or more in the second half.
But Broncos might fall into a Von trap
Peyton Manning might be torching teams at a record pace, but his road back to the Super Bowl just got a little more rugged now that pass-rush ace Von Miller has been lost for the season to a torn ACL and Wes Welker’s return from a concussion is uncertain.
Though Miller missed the first six games this season due to an NFL suspension and the Broncos went 6-0 in that span, don’t underestimate the importance of his absence in the playoffs.
A rejuvenated Shaun Phillips is Denver’s sack leader with 10, but Phillips and the Broncos’ defense is much more effective when Miller is on the field commanding double teams or requiring opponents to use a running back or tight end in pass protection.
And it’s not as if the Broncos were a suffocating defensive machine with Miller. Denver might have the NFL’s most unstoppable offense, but the Broncos are just 22nd in the league in scoring defense, allowing an unsightly average of 26 points in its past five games.
Miller’s absence would be easier to absorb if the Broncos still had Elvis Dumervil, but that was also a case of bad luck for Denver after the infamous “Faxgate” situation with his agent last spring resulted in Dumervil signing with the Ravens.
Welker’s absence also figures to weigh on Manning if it drags into the playoffs. Though this could just be a case of the Broncos being cautious and resting Welker for the postseason, Manning’s go-to third down receiver suffered two concussions in the span of three weeks, and the suspicion from outside the team is that the second one was much worse than the first.
Manning could indeed keep rolling to his second Super Bowl victory, but the task doesn’t appear to be getting any easier.
That Brady guy’s pretty good, too
How good are Bill Belichick and Tom Brady? Or Tom Brady and Bill Belichick? They have been at it together for a dozen years now, and nothing has changed. You still have to plunge a dagger through their hearts to kill them.
Aaron Hernandez rots in prison, awaiting trial for murder. Vince Wilfork and Jerod Mayo, the Patriots’ two best defensive players, have been long gone from the season. Rob Gronkowski, they hardly knew ye.
And so they march into the den of the defending Super Bowl champion Ravens, full of belief after Justin Tucker’s 61-yard field goal saved them against the Lions that they just might be a team of destiny, and … delivered merciless payback for the Ravens ending their season last January in Foxboro. With Logan Mankins forced to kick out to left tackle in place of Nate Solder.
Terry Bradshaw and Chuck Noll won four Super Bowls together. But Brady and Belichick is the best quarterback-coach tandem in the Super Bowl era.
Everything goes south in NFC North
How bad is the NFC North? The Lions couldn’t beat the Giants at home with their season on the line. Now they’re kaput. The Aaron Rodgers-less Packers couldn’t put the pressure on the Bears and lost in Pittsburgh. And the Bears couldn’t seize the moment — or the division title — and melted down in Philadelphia against the Eagles, who knew their postseason fate would not be determined until the following Sunday against the Cowboys.
How bad is the Redskins defense? Only they could make an injured Tony Romo look like Mr. Clutch on fourth-and-the-end.
How good is Bruce Arians? His Cardinals go on the road to beat the Seahawks and silence their vaunted 12th Man … with a diminished Larry Fitzgerald and Carson Palmer.
How bad are the Saints on the road? They couldn’t prevent former Giant Domenik Hixon from catching the last-minute game-winner from Cam Newton. It can’t be comforting that rookie left tackle Terron Armstead, who replaced Charles Brown, allowed two sacks and added a pair of false starts.
Bills showing some utility
They aren’t making the playoffs this year — again — but the Bills are suddenly looking like a team to keep an eye on in 2014.
Buffalo has quietly won three out of its past five games, with one of the two losses coming in overtime to the Falcons, and its most recent victory — Sunday’s 19-0 blanking of the Dolphins in a game Miami had to win — was by far the most impressive.
The Bills held the Dolphins to 103 total yards — not a misprint — and forced them to punt a whopping 10 times.
If quarterback EJ Manuel — who has shown promise — can stay healthy in his second season or they can find merely competent play from a veteran quarterback, Buffalo will be a threat to the Patriots’ AFC East dominance.
Their defense is simply too good for that not to happen.
Not only do the Bills have three players with 10 or more sacks — Mario Williams (13), Kyle Williams (10 1/2) and Jerry Hughes (10) — but Buffalo has a staggering 56 sacks overall.
A lot of that is the result of sensational rookie middle linebacker Kiko Alonso, a tackling machine whose sideline-to-sideline prowess allows the Bills’ defensive front to focus on getting to the quarterback, much like Luke Kuechly’s impact on the Panthers.
The 6-9 record is anything but impressive, but four of those nine Buffalo losses came by a total of just 15 points combined. That indicates the Bills aren’t that far away from contending and finally ending that embarrassing playoff drought dating to 1999.