SUPER BOWL, N.Y. — Frank Sinatra taught us, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
Now Peyton Manning tries to make it here.
They step off their respective flights one by one, video cameras rolling, into the warmth of cold temperatures that jolt them into the reality that the first New York Super Bowl belongs to them.
Here comes Richard Sherman, the talk of the town, the talk of the country, the football Ali to some, Public Enemy No. 1 to others. Here comes Pete Carroll, 20 years after the Jets fired him when he was a rookie head coach, bouncing into a moment maybe only he visualized. Here comes Russell Wilson, the precocious Other Quarterback. Here comes reluctant Marshawn Lynch, Beast Mode with a ball in his hands, Least Mode in front of the media. Here come the Seahawks.
Here comes Wes Welker, looking to stick it to Bill Belichick one more time. Here comes John Fox, back from a heart scare for another shot at a championship. Here comes Champ Bailey, who has waited 15 years to hoist a Lombardi Trophy. Here comes Eric Decker, the sex-symbol receiver with the celebrity wife. Here comes Mr. Bronco John Elway, two-time champ and Hall of Fame quarterback, who brought Peyton Manning to Denver.
And here comes Peyton Manning.
This is Peyton Manning Week.
After all he has been through — the heartbreak of having to make way for the Andrew Luck Era and finding a new team, the doubts and fears that his neck surgeries could prevent him from playing again — he gets this once-in-a-lifetime chance to make New York Peyton’s Place, very possibly his last chance to leave his footprints as Greatest Of All Time.
Because if he wins his second Super Bowl championship at Little Brother Eli’s house, I will stand on top of the Empire State building and trumpet his coronation as the Greatest Of All Time.
Should he become the first quarterback to lead two different franchises to the Lombardi Trophy, that will be enough for me to vault him past Joe Montana.
Montana may have four rings, but he didn’t sustain excellence for as long as Manning has.
If Manning can beat Pete Carroll’s ferocious, barking pit bulls from Seattle, he will have pushed his playoff record to 12-11, and plunged a dagger into the notion he is the best regular-season quarterback in NFL history, but little more.
You can win four Super Bowls, as Terry Bradshaw has, and still be ranked below Dan Marino, who never won one.
And it sure wouldn’t hurt Manning’s legacy if he were to play big in the biggest game on the biggest stage, the Broadway stage, and win that second ring.
The game may be played in New Jersey, but the New York Giants and New York Jets play there, too.
Montana was denied a pair of Super Bowl berths by Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Lawrence Taylor and those Big Blue bad boys, and once by Buddy Ryan’s ’85 Bears, but he never faced a defense as formidable as these Seahawks when he got to the big game.
Montana and Jerry Rice never had to deal with a cornerback like Sherman, who masterfully and meteorically has raised his national profile with a rant for the ages, or a ballhawk free safety like Earl Thomas III.
And no one, through the sheer force of an indomitable will like Manning’s, has stormed back from four neck fusion surgeries at age 37 to lead a Bronco to water and make it drink like this.
His boss, Elway, was a more diminished player at 37 than Manning, and had been carried to the Super Bowl XXXII crown by running back Terrell Davis before one last hurrah in Super Bowl XXXIII.
It has been suggested that Manning, faced with his own football mortality, appreciates the game to such an extent he no longer puts insufferable pressure on himself to win. I don’t buy it. Every great athlete is driven to be the best at what he does, and be viewed that way by the public and his peers.
It can’t possibly be enough for Manning to be recognized as the NFL’s foremost pitchman, Madison Avenue’s darling. It isn’t the way he is wired.
The record-55 touchdown passes, the 400-yard dispatching of Tom Brady’s Patriots, Manning will reflect upon all that when he’s finished playing.
Welcome to The City That Never Sleeps, where Peyton Manning will never sleep until he knows the Seahawks defense better than the Seahawks defense knows him.
Manning, remember, passed on playing for Parcells in New York in 1997 to return to Tennessee for his senior year. He passed on playing for Rex Ryan here when he was shown the door in Indianapolis and went looking for a team.
Joe Namath won his Super Bowl in Miami. Phil Simms won his in Pasadena. Jeff Hostetler in Tampa. Eli Manning in Glendale, Ariz., and Indianapolis.
How ironic it would be if Peyton Manning can make it here, in Super Bowl, N.Y. ?