Peyton's legacy will finally be set in stone ... until it changes
I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss Peyton Manning's legacy. He is D.B. Cooper.
You know, the guy who skyjacked a plane and parachuted out with a bag full of cash. That's Manning. Swear to God.
Or ...
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| Peyt-y Bunch: Manning could end up with any one of these legacies ... right? (AP/Getty Images) |
It's easy to make up a legacy for a guy when he hasn't finished his work. It's easy to decide that a guy can't win the big one when he hasn't won one. The problem is, he still could, and then you have a whole new legacy. He's the guy who could win one.
God, this is easy.
Somewhere along the line, after the start of 24/7 sports yammering but before the invention of Wii, we became fixated on the legacies of active people. George Bush had a legacy six years ago, and now he has a different one. Bet he'd take the old one, sight unseen, right now.
But this isn't Hardball, or The Newshour with Gwen Ifill, or Hannity & Don't Make Me Get Out of This Chair And Beat Your Ass, or any of the other political blatherfests. This is the sports blatherfest, which frankly predates the political blatherfest by years, and by damn and tarnation, Peyton Manning is to have a legacy today, whether he wants, needs or deserves one.
This is, of course, stupid, but we have more time on our hands than to do much editing. Manning is a very good quarterback, the best of his era by any rational measure. Why, he could probably quit tomorrow and go to the Hall of Fame.
Well, that's not so. If he quit tomorrow, questions might be asked. As in, "Where were you, do you have a note from your doctor, and what would Steve Sabol say?"
But the point here is that, after a week of "What Will Peyton Manning's Legacy Be?" it occurs to us that Winston Churchill, who was arguably on the short list of the greatest men of the 20th century, actually got to die before people decided his legacy. And though we have culled the 3,929 quote sheets emitted from the past five days of Super Bowl XLIPMFRQDSK or whatever the hell it is, we have found no reference, statistical data or any other form of evidence that Manning is, in fact, dead.
I mean, for most of us, that would be a pretty good day-to-day legacy: "Still vertical today, can't complain" is a good way to be.
So, the way we figure it, Peyton Manning has no legacy today. In fact, he'll have no legacy Sunday night, either. And while we're at it, neither does Tony Dungy or Lovie Smith. I mean, their legacy now, if you buy the present logic, is that they are the first two African-American yah-da-dah, yah-da-dah, but in fact one's legacy will be the first black coach who is also a genius while the other's will be the first black coach who is a moron. It all depends on the final score Sunday night.
Sorry, that's just how we do it.
So there you have it. Peyton Manning is Johnny Unitas. No, he's Sam Etcheverry. No, he's Karl Rove. No, he's Nancy Pelosi. No, he's Alec Baldwin. No, he's Kathy Bates. No, he's Archie Manning. No, he's Eli Manning. No, he's Ricky Manning.
But check with us again Tuesday. Maybe his legacy then will be the guy who dropped his pants on the podium at the Colts victory parade. As Chuck Berry taught us, "It goes to show, you never can tell."
Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
