Talk about hyping up an event. The press had a field day with this one. Peyton Manning played football in Indianapolis for 13 years. He was the hometown hero. He led the Colts to a Super Bowl. Then he got hurt and missed an entire season. Then he got cut. Then John Elway called…
Now Payton has a nice new house outside of Denver and a team which seems to have a solid infrastructure and adequate backing to make another run at the Super Bowl with the Broncos. Under the direction of Elway and Co., that’s the plan, nothing less.
As we have already seen this season, Peyton Manning still has a lot of football left in him. Over the years he has become sort of the dean of NFL quarterbacks and is highly respected throughout the league.
Manning’s return to Indy to take on his old team… now in the hands of second year quarterback Andrew Luck turned into quite an event. Jim Irsay, the owner of the Colts, got into it and someone even went out and found Payton’s dad Archie to get his views on the upcoming contest.
The actual game was preceded by 2 or 3 days of talk and speculation about what would happen, who would win? how would Peyton react? how would the crowd react? and on and on. It was a relief when the game finally got underway.
The Broncos opened as 6.5 point favorites with an Over & Under of 56. By game time that number was up to 7. Check out some of the props offered in Las Vegas for this homecoming matchup.
The standards were already set quite high for Peyton by the handicappers. The Over & Under on Total Gross Passing Yards for him was at 330.5 total touchdown passes at 2.5. Big numbers to live up to.
Props were also offered on total receiving yards by Denver’s Demaryius Thomas and whether Wes Welker will score a touchdown during the game. For current Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, who Peyton suggested to be hired by Indy, the total number of pass completions is posted at 23.5 with his total number of touchdown passes at 1.5 but, how to you throw a half a touchdown pass?
NFL pregame shows even carted out retired players like Brett Favre to talk about what it was like to come back to a place that was your home field for years and go in as an opponent. All of them described it as a humbling experience and one that they would never forget.
