(USA Today Sports)
Broncomaniacs are up and arms about Peyton Manning not being embarrassed about his performance in the Super Bowl. They wanted him to feel their pain after being all excited just to watch a bad performance in the end.
What they wanted to hear was a fired-up Manning being disgusted about his own performance and apologizing for it. To their chagrin, he said that it was insulting for anyone to say his performance was embarrassing. It’s a quote Manning can’t live it down with the fans.
While the Broncos quarterback should have used his words properly in that moment, everyone is making too much of what he said. What people should know is athletes and coaches rarely tell how they really feel when they talk to the media. They are not going to throw tantrums.
Acting out sounds great for the fans, but in the end, it makes a player or a coach sound like a fool. It does not change the outcome or make the feeling of Sunday’s game go away.
Even when John Elway expressed his determination to make it right in his postmortem presser on Tuesday, he did not act like a lunatic.
Manning has always been known to be rational rather than speaking out of turn. He is not going to rip his teammates in the media. He won’t question his coaches. He won’t say anything out of line. It would have been nice if he let it rip like Elway did on Tuesday, but that’s not how he is wired.
There’s no question Manning was bothered. How couldn’t he be? This may have been his last chance of winning a championship. He knows about how important it was to win a championship for his legacy. He understands what this Super Bowl meant. There’s no way he could have been content.
Because Manning is laidback, no one should assume he is taking a carefree approach. He has been a competitor all his life. He does not have the success he has by being easygoing. He did not play football so he can enjoy being in the NFL. He knew he had to get many championships.
There’s a good chance he may have one championship in his Hall of Fame career. There’s no reason to think he would be content just by winning one. That’s why he will keep playing until he can get two or three championships.
Manning knows time is running out. There’s no way anyone can say he does not care. That’s wrong.
The Broncos quarterback was being defensive more than anything. He wanted to express to the media that his team shouldn’t apologize for being in the Super Bowl and that the Broncos were more than worthy of playing there. He said they were good enough.
To be fair to Manning, he said to finish this way was disappointing and it’s not an easy pill to swallow. He also said if he doesn’t know if he will ever get over it. This did not seem like a guy that was thrilled, right?
The problem with fans and the media is they have selective hearing. They pick things up that suit their argument rather than read the fine print of the press transcript. It’s a soundbite they pick up and they run with it.
There’s no question Manning is a mercenary to the Broncomaniacs. He was hired as a guy to win a championship, and that’s what he is judged on. There’s no crime ripping the guy for not playing well in a game of Sunday’s magnitude.
Just don’t rip the guy for saying one thing when he also expressed regret and disappointment for his performance.
Manning will think about this for a long time. That’s suffering. There’s no way anyone will forget this outcome in the Super Bowl. That could be why he did not talk to the media since the Super Bowl. He is not one to express himself privately.
One has to figure he will talk about what went wrong in the Super Bowl at a later date. It could be during training camp in the summer. It could be beforehand.
Don’t expect him to apologize for him to say he is not embarrassed. There’s no reason to when he is taking this loss as hard as any Bronco.
Contact or follow Leslie Monteiro at @LightRodWriter.
Leslie Monteiro
Leslie is a contributor for Lightning Rod Sports. He covered high school sports in Bergen County out in North Jersey, and has written op-ed columns on sports such as Bleacher Report and NY Sports Digest.
