USA TODAY International Edition
DORSETT CAN RELATE TO MANNING
Pride factor when career nears end, Hall of Famer says
Tony Dorsett can feel Peyton Manning’s pain.
Near the end of a long NFL career, pride sometimes can get in the way of answering difficult questions.
Should I give it one more shot? Or should I call it quits?
“Sometimes they say that is the problem,” said Dorsett, a Hall of Fame running back. “Players just don’t know when it’s time to move on.”
Deep down, Dorsett says, players still know when to call it quits, though the decision can be difficult and complicated. Even now, more than 25 years since his retirement, Dorsett has second thoughts about how his career ended with the Denver Broncos in 1988. Looking back, he calls it “probably one of the worst moves I made.”
There are parallels with Manning’s career arc. Both won Super Bowls with the teams that drafted them: Manning with the Indianapolis Colts, Dorsett with the Dallas Cowboys. After spending more than a decade in those cities, both were nudged out when their teams opted to go with younger players. Both moved to Denver in an effort to prolong their careers.
In Manning’s case, the move worked out — at least until recently. In Dorsett’s case, his tenure with Denver had a bright — but much shorter — start before it petered out. Then he was injured and done.
In retrospect, Dorsett says he wishes he had done things differently. Maybe he shouldn’t have moved on to the Broncos for a single season in 1988. But he was determined to keep going at the time and wanted to be traded after the Cowboys committed to a younger running back, Herschel Walker.
“I was just glad somebody else wanted me after all those years and all those licks I had taken,” Dorsett said. “It was a pride factor more than anything. I knew I could still play, but to see myself in a different uniform after playing with one franchise for so long was really strange. It was a good thing to see how another franchise did it, how they run things. … So from that perspective it was good, but I never felt comfortable. I made the wrong move.”
It was harder to see then than it is now. Dorsett rushed for at least 113 yards in two of his first four games with the Broncos in 1988, making him seem like his old self at 34.
Then the bottom fell out, risking his legacy and health.
Much like Michael Jordan’s two- season tenure with the Washington Wizards after 13 seasons with the Chicago Bulls, Dorsett’s brief stint in Denver still looks out of place all these years later.
And there’s no way to tell if it might have added to the health issues Dorsett is battling now with symptoms of chronic traumatic encephalopathy ( CTE), a brain disease linked to head injuries from football.
Manning, 39, is in his fourth season with Denver but has struggled recently with his performance and health. He threw four interceptions in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Nov. 15 and since has been sidelined with rib and foot injuries.
“I have a really hard time using that as any type of excuse,” Manning said of his injuries after the game.
He is scheduled to miss his second consecutive start this weekend when the Broncos play the New England Patriots but is pushing to return. According to Pro Football Talk, which cited an unnamed person, Manning has told teammates he wants to play next year even if it’s not with the Broncos.
“Peyton is frustrated by the fact that he’s injured,” Broncos coach Gary Kubiak said Monday. “He is doing everything he can possibly do to get himself healthy.”
Dorsett had similar intentions in 1989, when he suffered a preseason knee injury that effectively ended his career.
Dorsett, 61, still is trying to recover his health. In an effort to heal, he recently traveled here to receive stem cell treatments that were derived from his own fat before being processed by Celltex, a company in Houston. The treatments are not proven by U. S. standards and are unapproved for use in the USA, leading him to get injections in another country.
In 2011, Manning received a similar stem cell treatment in Europe as he battled a neck injury.
Dorsett said Mannning is “getting close” to the end. And that’s when it can become a personal battle to keep proving yourself despite mounting evidence of your diminished value to the team, such as injuries and team decisions to limit your playing time in favor of somebody else.
“That’s the way it goes, especially when you’re on your last leg, so to speak,” Dorsett said. “You’ve got to go on and suck it up and take it like a man.”
“Sometimes they say that is the problem. Players just don’t know when it’s time to move on.” Former NFL running back Tony Dorsett