Manning on his health
“I have a really hard time using that as any type of excuse. I had some injuries during the week. Greek [Athletic Trainor Steve Antonopulos] and the training staff worked overtime to get me to feeling like I thought like I could go out there and play. Obviously you have to give a lot of feedback yourself, and I felt good enough to go out there and play. If you look back on it now, I have a hard time saying that’s why I played badly. Could that be the reason? I guess it always could be. But to me, that’s an easy way out. That’s kind of an easy line to say after the fact. So I was very honest with Greek and coach Kubiak that I felt like I could go. I wanted to go, I wanted to be out there for the team. I did feel like we had some guys down, with Talib down and DeMarcus down, and weren’t really sure Emmanuel was going to be able to play. So I wanted to be out there. I was as honest with them with the feedback as I could give them, and certainly did not play well and am disappointed about that.”
Here’s the deal: It’s not Manning’s job to tell the Broncos when he’s healthy enough to play. And based on his track record, unless he’s undergoing numerous neck surgeries, Peyton Manning believes he’s always healthy enough to play football.
I know there are a lot of Broncos fans out there that are angry at Manning right now, but that energy is being misguided. Manning is doing EVERYTHING he can to help the Broncos win; it’s just not enough at this moment.
Obviously, Manning wanted to play this weekend, and I’m sure he wants to play next weekend. He’s an old-school guy, and that means that if you can walk, you can play. But right now, the best thing for Manning is if he sits, and he shouldn’t stand back up until he’s healthy enough to play at a winning level, whenever that is.
