How much does 39-year-old Peyton Manning have left?
Is this the year Manning leads the Broncos to a Super Bowl title? And if not, should the team have moved on from the 39-year-old to begin the rebuilding process?
There was a report last month that the Broncos tried to trade Peyton Manning to the Texans this offseason. The Broncos denied it (of course), but at some point in the not-too-distant future there will be conversations about the look of Denver's offense in a post-Manning world.
Manning is entering his 18th NFL season. He's a first-ballot Hall of Famer who as recently as last season was playing like a top-5 quarterback. (According to Football Outsiders, he ranked third in total value behind Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers, and fifth in value per play.)
But at this stage of the proceedings, a lot can change from one year to the next, and almost without fail, those changes are for the worse. So it's fair to ask what we can expect from Manning, a 39-year-old NFL quarterback, and if the Broncos would have been better off moving on from him sooner rather than later.
As it stands, the backup plan consists of 2012 second-round pick Brock Osweiler, who arrived in Denver shortly after the team signed Manning. Osweiler has thrown a grand total of 30 passes in three seasons, appearing in just 13 games.
The element of the unknown has a lot to do with the organization's decision about when Life After Peyton beings -- and understandably so. But delaying the inevitable also has consequences: Would the Broncos be better off with a 39-year-old Manning in 2015, even if that means another disappointing postseason, or would they be better served by finding their quarterback of the future now, instead putting it off a year. (This assumes that Manning will retire after the season, which seems reasonable but certainly not guaranteed.)
Concerns about Manning's late-season plummet
Here's a telling stat from Week 16 of the 2014 season:
After starting the season with a passer rating north of 110.0 in six of seven games, Manning has been under 90.0 in five of eight.
— Chris Wesseling (@ChrisWesseling) December 23, 2014
NFL.com's Chris Wesseling tweeted that out shortly after Manning's sluggish performance against the Bengals on a Monday night. Typically, bombing on national television has been Andy Dalton's domain, but on that night Manning out-Dalton'd Dalton and then some. Here's what we wrote at the time:
For 30 minutes, Peyton Manning looked like Archie Manning if he were still playing quarterback today as a 65-year-old. Peyton seemed equal parts overwhelmed, flustered and wholly incapable of throwing the football more than seven yards past the line of scrimmage. And the ship on spirals sailed years ago. It's all ducks, all the time, and on Monday night, the Bengals secondary went (wait for it ...) duck hunting.
When it was over, Manning was 28 of 44 for 311 yards, with two touchdowns, four interceptions and a passer rating of 61.8.
In the regular-season finale a week later against the Raiders, Manning's passer rating was 80.1. Two weeks after that, in the AFC divisional round, the Broncos lost to the Colts and Manning completed 56.5 percent of his throws and had a passer rating of 75.5.
By comparison: In 2013, Manning had passer ratings above 107 in five of his final eight regular-season games. In the playoffs that season, he had passer ratings of 93.5 and 118.4 before dropping to 73.5 in the Super Bowl loss to the Seahawks.
In 2012, Manning's lowest passer rating in the final 10 weeks of the season was 90.5. His highest: 144.8, in Week 17. His passer rating in the divisional playoff loss to the Ravens was 88.3.
This isn't proof that Manning's done. CBSSports.com's Pete Prisco ranked Manning 12th in his annual Top 100 players, noting: "There is a perception that he didn't play well last season. That's hot garbage. He threw 39 touchdown passes and was hurt late in the season. Don't let his playoff showing against the Colts fool you."
And last week, Andy Benoit of TheMMQB.com ranked Manning No. 4 among all NFL quarterbacks. "Don't let back-to-back ugly postseason losses (Colts last year, Seahawks the year before) overshadow back-to-back seasons of daunting statistics," Benoit wrote. "Arm strength has never been his game; field command, fundamentals and IQ have. Those are all still fully intact."
Comparing Manning to other old(er) QBs
You can't do an apples-to-apples comparison of Manning to other quarterbacks his age because, in simple terms, he's one of a kind and they, collectively, are average. But we can get a sense for how both Manning and other same-age quarterbacks have seen their production change as they get older.
Based on the data above (courtesy of ProFootballReference.com), the average 39-year-old quarterback started 11 games, threw for 2,532 yards, completed 60 percent of his passes, with 15 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and a passer rating of 80.3 while winning 45 percent of the time.
(This is where we point out that quarterbacks who survive in the league until their late 30s have clearly done something right to get to that point. The average career for an NFL quarterback -- whatever their draft pedigree -- is about 4.5 years. Knowing that, it stands to reason that the old-timers still starting regularly would be playing at a relatively high level.)
But when comparing the average 39-year-old quarterback to the average 38-year-old quarterback, the production drops across the board. Completion percentage is down 2.3 percent, touchdowns are down 3.9 percent, interceptions are up 5.4 percent, passer rating is down 3.1 percent, and winning percentage drops 25.4 percent.
Meanwhile, Manning, by almost any measure, had an outstanding overall 2014 season. He completed 66 percent of his throws for 4,727 yards, 39 touchdowns, 15 interceptions and a 101.5 passer rating while leading the Broncos to a 12-4 record. But these numbers are all down from the year before, when Manning was the NFL MVP. In 2013, he completed 68.3 percent of his throws for 5,477 yards, 55 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, 115.1 passer rating, a 13-3 record and a Super Bowl appearance.
The difference in production from 2013 to '14 makes it look like Manning's slipping -- completion percentage down 3.1 percent, passing yards down 13.7 percent, touchdowns down 29 percent, interceptions up 50 percent, passer rating down 11.5 percent -- but the real anomaly is that, even by Peyton's standards, he was playing out of his mind in 2013.
A better comparison, perhaps, is looking at the differences in Manning's 2012 and '14 seasons. There we find that his completion percentage dipped by 3.5 percent in 2014, his touchdowns were up by 5.4 percent, his interceptions were up by 36.4 percent and his passer rating was down by 4.1 percent.
Put another way: While there's little difference between Manning's 2012 and '14 numbers, it's reasonable to expect his production to slip -- even if slightly -- as he gets older. Pinpointing when it might happen is the challenge, but as always, there are exceptions.
In 2009, 40-year-old Brett Favre led the Vikings to 12 wins and threw for 4,202 yards with 33 touchdowns, seven interceptions and a passer rating of 107.2. But a year later, Favre showed his age; in 13 games, he threw for just 2,509 yards with 11 touchdowns and 19 picks to go along with a 69 passer rating.
In 1995, 39-year-old then-Vikings quarterback Warren Moon threw for 4,228 yards with 33 touchdowns, 14 interceptions and a passer rating of 91.5. Moon played five more seasons but never again completed more than 60 percent of his throws, or had a passer rating above 84.
Which brings us back to Manning: The big question isn't whether he can still dominate -- he can. It's whether he can dominate in December and January, something he struggled to do last season. But whatever happens in 2015, the team will be in the market for a new quarterback. Whether that quarterback is already on the roster, on another team's roster or in college, it's hard to imagine the 2016 season begins with 40-year-old Peyton Manning under center.
