Mind Games
Manning’s brain gives him big edge
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Wide re ce iver Emmanuel Sanders remembers when he first joined the Broncos in 2014, paying attention to the habits of the player sitting in front of him during team meetings.
“Before I got here, I never really took notes,” Sanders said Tuesday. “But Peyton [Manning] has made me a better player because I sit right behind him. I used to watch him, and he would take notes about everything the coach said. So I’m like, I’m about to pull out my notebook. I remember training camp, he invited me into his room because he wanted to teach me the playbook. This was last year. I saw how he had his whole room set up. You know most hotel rooms have desks and he would put his playbook on his desk, so I started putting my playbook on the desk and I started having success because I started studying.”
Sanders saw what countless teammates and coaches have seen from Manning during his 18-year career. His brain has as much to do, and lately more, with his success as his physical skills. Manning spends hours studying film, studying the game plan and sharpening the mental side of his game.
“The way that he prepares, man, is like none other,” Sanders said. “He knows the game really well and that’s because he studies. If you apply yourself to anything you’re going to get great results out of it. That’s one thing I learned from him; just apply yourself, take the game serious, know your job, because it’s more than physical. Peyton shows that. What is he, the oldest starting quarterback in the National Football League? Some of that is physical, but the majority of that is mental. His mental edge over the competition is great.”
The big story about Manning, 39, this season has been his slip in play — the 17 interceptions and only nine touchdowns, the injury to his foot that hindered him for most of the year. It was fuel for the fire to the critics who said Manning no longer has the arm strength to be an elite quarterback.
Manning admitted this week his arm has not been the same since neck surgeries in 2011. But he has used his mind and his high football IQ to compensate, and it is something that separates him from other quarterbacks.
“I think as a quarterback I think it’s your job to prepare to have an appreciation and respect for the cerebral part of the game, try to find some type of edge, and for me I’ve always tried to find some type of edge from the cerebral part as a student of the game,” Manning said. “I think that has been pretty consistent throughout my career, but I think you have to be able to adjust based on who you’re playing with, based on the head coach that you’re playing for, the system that you’re in. Like I shared yesterday, I’ve played 18 years, played for f ive different head coaches, I played a couple of systems with a lot of different teammates. And I think the fact that I’ve been flexible, been willing to learn new things, try new things, take different styles of coaching, I think that has helped me.”
Since returning from injury for the playoffs, Manning has not t h rown an i nte rce pt i o n. Broncos coa c h Gary Kubia k believes that Manning’s struggles this season with turnovers was not an indication that Man-
ning’s preparation had slipped.
“I think it has a lot to do healthwise with him feeling better, too,” Kubiak said. “As we approach the time before he took the break off with his foot, and I watched him play, he wasn’t playing healthy. I think getting back totally healthy [and] feeling really good physically and mentally has really helped him over the course of this past month. I can’t speak for him, but I think he would tell you that he also understands the team he is on and the type of defense we’ve been playing, [and that] when we protect the football, it gives us a very good chance to have some success. So, I think he has bought into that and done a great job.”