FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — It is the super game within the Super Bowl, the super chess match that could very well decide who hoists the Lombardi Trophy tomorrow night.
Peyton Manning versus Darren Sharper.
Chad Ochocinco was asked yesterday what makes Darren Sharper special.
“Very sneaky,” he said. “Very sneaky. He’s like a Peyton Manning at safety.”
Sneaky in what way?
“Knowing what’s gonna happen before it happens,” Ochocinco said. “So Peyton knows what you’re running before you even snap the ball or you do all your little bluffing on defense — and that’s him.
“That’s why I think this battle is gonna come down to Peyton vs. 42.”
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Sharper, who would look awfully good in a No. 42 Giants uniform should he decide to leave the Saints, intercepted Eli Manning three times in 2005, and returned another pick 92 yards for a touchdown against Peyton’s little brother two years later.
Eli said he would welcome him as a teammate.
“Seems like a great leader, player, makes plays,” he said. “I don’t know if the Saints’ll let him go, but he’s been a good player for a long time.”
In many ways, Sharper is the Peyton Manning of defensive backs, the master of trickery and deception, armed with Hall of Fame instincts that enable him to show up unexpectedly and sucker the best and brightest of quarterbacks.
“He sees. He reacts,” Eli said aboard the Reebok Zigtech Yacht yesterday. “He’s a guy who’s just been around. He’s obviously smart. . . . He kinda knows just when to take his chances.
“When you’re running around and aggressive and around the ball, things happen and you can make some plays.”
Eli was asked what advice he would give Peyton.
“You gotta know where he is,” Eli said. “He will sit on certain things when he’s supposed to play a middle safety. “He will sit and take some chances if he sees some things. You get him once on something, if you throw an in route underneath him, that second time be aware that he could be sitting, so you have some opportunities where maybe you can take advantage of that also.”
Manning vs. Sharper: The Super Bowl of chess matches.
“They’re gonna try to confuse Peyton a little bit and do some looks, but nothing I don’t think Peyton’s never seen before,” Eli said. “And he’ll be prepared, and the Saints do a lot of looks, I know he’s been watching a lot of film trying to get it down. . . . It’ll be a good match.”
Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams said the chess match between the two veterans will be the key matchup of Super Bowl XLIV.
“I think it’s gonna be Peyton Manning vs. Darren Sharper,” Williams said. “He’s been Johnny on the spot all year.”
It was man against boy when Sharper read Mark Sanchez’s eyes and returned an interception 99 yards in the Superdome, but Manning is a far more daunting challenge for him.
“It is the ultimate challenge for a guy like myself,” Sharper said. “He’s going to be throwing it in my area, and I’m trying to find ways to trick him or try to get an interception, and that’s a tough task to do.”
Sharper, 34, has 63 career interceptions, nine this season.
“He’s an awesome player,” Peyton said. “He’s a center fielder back there. . . . He covers a lot of ground. What a great free agent acquisition for the Saints.”
CBS analyst Phil Simms, who will be broadcasting the super game within the Super game, said he has high regard for Sharper.
“I think he’s a kid who probably all his life was good at all sports he tried, so he just knows how to play,” Simms said. “He just has athletic sense. He’s a gamer. He has moxie. He’s a baller. He’s all those things. I call guys ballers — they’re just players, man. They love the action.”
Manning vs. Sharper.
“There’s no doubt it’s gonna be fun to watch,” Simms said. “Can he [Sharper] disguise something from Peyton Manning? Is that possible? Can he cheat, and he’s somewhere where Peyton doesn’t expect him to be?
“That’s what unique players do — they see a situation, they analyze it, they take a big risk, but it’s not that big a risk. They’ve already determined there’s only one or two combinations that can come out of it.”
Can the sharpest safety in the game fool the sharpest quarterback in the game with the whole world watching?
“He’s gonna fool him, no doubt,” Simms said. “Darren Sharper is absolutely gonna win a couple of those battles with Peyton Manning.
“But how many is he gonna lose?”
“He’s an awesome player,” Manning said. “He’s a center fielder back there. . . . He covers a lot of ground. He sees something [and] feels like it’s going to happen. . . . What a great free-agent acquisition for the Saints.”