Why Peyton Manning will lose the Super Bowl

I was born in the city of Indianapolis, and raised by a house of Colts fans. When I was old enough to understand football, my parents thrusted me into the world of Peyton Manning. He had promising talent and would develop to be one of the greatest statistical QBs in NFL history. Natural instinct would be to follow this promise and become a Colts fan. However, whenever Manning made his playoff run, he was cut short by Tom Brady or one of the other perennial playoff contenders in the AFC. While he did win one Super Bowl with the Colts, to me he is a lackluster playoff QB who happened to luckily get matched up against Rex Grossman in the world championship. 

Now to this year's Super Bowl. 

Having spent this year shredding opposing defenses and obliterating virtually every passing record, Peyton and his Broncos have earned some notoriety. He's taken down Brady and a hot Phillip Rivers in the playoffs, but does he have what it takes to grasp the Lombardi Trophy? Will he finally be able to produce when it really counts? My answer is no. 

While he has finally won a playoff game for the first time in what seems like an eternity, he hasn't been truly challenged. A sorry Chargers team that could barely beat the Chiefs' backups was no match for arguably the greatest assembly of receivers this league has ever seen, and the injury that Aquib Talib was finally one too many for Brady and the Boys to overcome. While the Broncos' run this year looks good on paper, we all know that the Super Bowl is a different game. Lombardi's Trophy is not earned by having the best stats or having the "greatest offense of all time." It is won by out-executing, out-working and out-muscling the other team. That is why I have always hesitated to pick Peyton Manning as a perennial contender for the Super Bowl. The style of football that Manning's teams play is too "cute" to compete with the big boys on the biggest of all stages. 

When Manning needs that first down on third and 5 with 3 minutes left in the fourth, he won't get all the time in the world to throw. The Seahawks D is number one for a reason. He is going to have to make that big throw through the Legion of Boom if he is going to put his team in the position to win. Remember the last time Peyton needed a big throw in the Super Bowl against another swarming defense? That's right, it ended with Tracy Porter in the endzone and me shouting WHO DAT in my mom's face for the next two hours. Don't get me wrong, the Broncos are going to put up a fight, but Richard Sherman is going to do what he does best, and maybe we'll be lucky enough to get another entertaining interview from the Stanford grad. 

(21-17 Seahawks)