The Peyton Manning the Broncos got on Sunday might be all the Peyton Manning they need now.
Might be. This was the 12-loss Chargers, after all, not the gauntlet they’ll have to run to get to the Super Bowl. But they’re running it on their home turf because Manning gave them what he gave them. It’s all he had to give. It’s all they needed.
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No, you didn’t see that coming.
Coming off the bench, Manning only threw the ball nine times Sunday. On the instantly-legendary 80-yard touchdown drive the first time he stepped back onto the field, he only threw it twice. On the touchdown drive that won the Broncos the game, 27-20, and sent the AFC playoffs through Denver, he didn’t throw it at all.
That’s just fine with everybody in and around the Broncos. It’s going to be a storybook ending if the Broncos now run the table, make it to Santa Clara and win Super Bowl 50 on Manning’s back, even if he does nothing more than he did against the Chargers.
The Broncos won Sunday because of their running game, defense and a quarterback who doesn't make mistakes. It's only what they said they needed all season. In the end, they needed it for a quarter and a half, and it worked.
Manning doesn’t have to be fully healthy, because the odds are that he wasn’t on Sunday, won’t be two weeks from now and won’t be in any playoff game.
More important, he doesn’t have to be the Manning who lives in memory, because that’s the only place that version of Manning exists.
He wasn't perfect, even though the drama of the moment was. He completed five of the nine passes, hit a few that looked like exactly what he did in the record-setting days in Denver and in Indianapolis. He was off on a handful more. The Broncos needed some big defensive stops and, of course, all 212 yards rushing by Ronnie Hillman and C.J. Anderson.
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That’s all a problem for another day. The Broncos still followed the season-long blueprint, and they're going to follow it in the postseason.
The bottom line on Sunday is that Gary Kubiak went with, he said, “my gut’’ and decided Brock Osweiler wasn’t going to do enough Sunday, or down the line, to justify keeping him in and Manning out.
Talk about margins of error — the Broncos weren’t going to stay with Osweiler after three turnovers himself, and five for the team, and after falling behind the lowly Chargers. They weren't even turnovers that reflected badly on him. The Broncos just couldn’t get out of their own way.
But Kubiak played his hunch anyway. It was time to say thanks — especially for taking them past the Patriots in the game that served as the tiebreaker — but it’s time.
And just like that, the world hadn’t seen the last of him after all. It’s the Manning everyone recognizes just once in a while.
That might be enough. The Broncos aren’t asking for much more.