Sunday Drive

Before anything gets going, before word one, Peyton Manning wants a little chicken. “Let’s grab something,” he says, fresh from lifting, arms swollen stiff, sweat rolling off his brow. He starts down the blue, blue hallways of the training facility, hands out gentle howdies and hellos to everyone he passes, peers in every doorway, around every corner for another pal. But Peyton is hungry.

He wants to grub. So he is always two steps ahead, hurrying a little, drawing things forward. “The best part is,” he says, turning into the cafeteria with its 30-yard landing-strip buffet, “we don’t have to go anywhere.”

When Manning drops food on his plate—a little salad, two chicken breasts, a pile of vegetables—it is in a sort of loose, architectural arrangement, the way some men throw tools in a box, so it looks like he knows where everything is supposed to be. He is not artfully plating anything, though he is not without his crafting, either. He clearly knows the daily combination. This is his spot. “Have anything you want,” he says. He points down the table, past the steamed vegetables and salad bowls, to the steaming casseroles, the cubes of cakes. “The stuff down there is good,” he says, “which is why I don’t go there.”

Before he sits, he gives a nod to the young players gathered at a table by the door. They watch him casually enough that they might be mistaken for not watching him at all, for being unaware of his pre-sence. Please. Each of them sets his eyes on Manning during the course of his meal; each of them gets a nice long look. When asked, Manning ticks off their names, with one, two, three sidelong glances to be sure he has it right. Seven names and not one a roster player last year. Manning knows them all. He ends by saying, “bunch of good kids.” Then he pauses. He’s still feeling that word out when it comes to his teammates—kids. But they are just that, and he is what he is, 32, one of the oldest starting quarterbacks in the National Football League, on the second-youngest team. So he corrects himself. “Guys.” Then he grows quiet, hunkers down. He’s a man now, an old man, really, in the abbreviated timeline of an NFL adulthood, and he’s just coming to terms with that.

“Anthony Gonzales came in here last year and he said he always enjoyed watching me on ESPN Classic,” he says, laughing. “But I got to thinking about it. He was 14 when I was a 22-year-old rookie.” It doesn’t irk him; he is reflective about these new gaps that have started to appear: “There aren’t many jobs where a 32-year-old gets to work closely with 22-year-olds as teammates and partners.”

If he is aware of their stares, it doesn’t show. It’s easy to forgive him being a bit inured to the attention. Manning is now 10 years gone from that very seat, from the anxiety and inexperience of being a rookie, from any hint of doubt about his own capabilities. We all are.

A decade—306 touchdown passes, more than 41,000 passing yards, the best 10-year career launch in NFL history. Ten years, 30 game-winning drives. Ten years to outstrip Johnny Unitas of nearly every career passing mark in franchise history. His place in the larger pantheon of NFL greats, cemented by the Colts’ Super Bowl win two seasons ago, is inarguable. Fourth all-time in career touchdown passes, ninth in career passing yards, eighth in career completions. His name sits squarely on the list within and amongst the greats—Favre, Marino, Elway, Tarkenton. It looks so natural that it’s tempting to think he may have always been plugged in on the shortlist. His father, for all his own best efforts with the Saints, really wasn’t there ever. And his brother, Eli, God bless him and his gritty pocket sense, his wobbly, over-lofted sideline routes, never will be. After a decade, Peyton has, in many ways, already arrived at his place in history.

And yet, he wasn’t always there. He started right here in Indianapolis, a rookie, drafted in a heady ether of expectation, 10 years ago, at once a long time ago and at the same time, not so very long at all.