The National Football League saw plenty of great quarterbacks before Peyton Manning. Brett, Favre, Troy Aikman, Joe Montana, John Elway, Jeff George. But none of them changed the direction of the league like Manning has.
When the Colts selected Peyton Manning with the No. 1 overall pick in 1998, only three times in the previous 13 years had a quarterback been taken first overall. In the 13 years since Manning’s selection, the first pick has been a quarterback 10 times, and when the Colts select Andrew Luck with the No. 1 pick this spring, that will make 11-for-14.
It is now universally accepted that an NFL team cannot be a serious title contender without a franchise quarterback. Everyone wants to find the next Peyton Manning.
In 13 seasons with the Colts, Manning has set 58 franchise records. He led the team to 141 regular season wins, 11 playoff appearances and one Super Bowl win. Along the way, he won four NFL MVP awards.
I could continue listing stats and accomplishments all day long, but Manning’s impact goes far beyond numbers. As a quarterback, Manning not only played the position, he revolutionized it.
It’s not like an NFL quarterback had never called an audible at the line of scrimmage before, but – like the franchise quarterback – Manning made the practice a necessity. Every quarterback now wants to read defenses the way Peyton Manning reads defenses. Every quarterback wants to control the pace of a game like Peyton Manning controls a game.
The personnel around Manning has changed. Marshall Faulk to Edgerin James to Joseph Addai. Marvin Harrison to Reggie Wayne. Jim Mora to Tony Dungy to Jim Caldwell. Manning has won with all of them. That’s what a franchise quarterback does.
The only contemporary quarterback that you can put next to Manning is Tom Brady. But Brady, though he has won more rings, doesn’t define the quarterback position like Manning, didn’t lead the NFL into a new pass-first era. Brady would tell you as much.
“To me, he’s the greatest of all time,” Brady said of Manning last year. “He’s a friend of mine, and someone that I always watch and admire, because he always want to improve, he always wants to get better, and he doesn’t settle for anything less than the best. So, when you watch the best and you’re able to learn from the best, hopefully that helps me get better.”
If Andrew Luck brings about Peyton Manning’s exit from Indianapolis, and it appears he will, it’d be an ironic twist. The Colts' need for a franchise quarterback – the very phenomenon that Manning helped bring about – would lead to his premature replacement.
But in today’s NFL, the one that, more than any other player, Manning created, it’s what the Colts have to do.
Quarterbacks Selected No. 1 Overall In 13 Years Prior To Peyton Manning (1998)
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