How hurt is Peyton Manning? Is he sore? Is he injured? Is he debilitated?
Those are the questions Broncos Country is asking themselves right now. And it all translates into: Will the Broncos get their quarterback back?
As we detailed earlier this week, there’s a real possibility that Manning’s plantar fasciitis could be season ending. Every time somebody talks about this injury, they use the word “lingers.” You don’t just heal plantar fasciitis; there’s no surgery or injection.
Some athletes, including Peyton’s brother Eli, have played through the same injury, but that doesn’t mean he can. Other’s, like the NBA’s Pau Gasol, have missed upwards of two months rehabbing their plantar fascia; it debilitated the always reliable Antonio Gates, causing him to feel pain, as he described to ESPN, like someone was “slicing a hot knife though butter.”
Just last year, Denver Sports fans witnessed Corey Dickerson deal with the same injury during the entirety of the Colorado Rockies season. After pain started to creep into his heal during spring training, Dickerson attempted to tough it out — much like Manning did last week — but was finally forced to shut it down for large chunks of the season once it became apparent that he simply couldn’t compete at the level he was used to.
“It’s incredibly painful, just to walk,” Dickerson told Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. “It can get to the point that you are thinking more about the foot than the game you’re playing.”
And even after resting 23 games in May and June, Dickerson’s comeback to the playing field was quickly cut short after increased pain forced him to sit out another 29 games in late June and July. And still, upon returning for the second time, Dickerson wasn’t fully healthy. It wasn’t until after he missed another 37 games with a broken rib that his foot finally had enough time to heal to the point that Dickerson could play baseball confidently.
So for Dickerson, when he’s watching Peyton Manning struggle to compete (let alone succeed) in last week’s game versus the Chiefs, he understands.
“You can always tell when an athlete is not playing up to their caliber and not doing the things that made them great,” Dickerson said. “Peyton’s performance didn’t just drop off for no reason. He was in pain and thinking about every move he had to make.”
People have often described plantar fasciitis as a pain that often feels better as the day goes on or during activity, but the truth is that it varies from person to person and from activity to activity. For Dickerson, he may not have felt the burning sensation in his heel when he was up at the plate, but when he began his sprint to first or started tracking a fly ball, a “stabbing pain” shot up his leg.
“It’s different with Peyton, of course, but he’s a big quarterback and he’s got to drop back so hard and so fast to be in a position to throw,” Dickerson said. “And he has to plant his feet to throw downfield. Those cleats grip the grass, and pain just shoots through your foot.”
So as we circle back around to our original question — how hurt is Peyton Manning? — we end up with the same answer: We don’t know. But he is hurt, and it could be awhile before we see him at his best again — if we every do.
