Total recall: Peyton Manning's long memory includes some surprising revelations

Twenty years ago this week, Peyton Manning’s Tennessee Volunteers took on rival Florida and wound up on the wrong side of a 31-0 beatdown. Manning was just a highly touted freshman back in 1994 and just one of three UT QBs who could do nothing that day.

It was the first frustrating, lopsided defeat of Manning’s career on the national stage, something that tends to happen when you’ve been playing in big, attention-grabbing games for going on two decades.

It was also the first time Manning was challenged with the riddle of coming back the following season and beating a rival that had his number, a circumstance that continues this week in a rare Super Bowl rematch with Manning trying to reverse what the Seattle Seahawks did to him in February.

Manning never did solve Steve Spurrier’s Gators, going 0-4 – although UF’s ability to score an average of 40.3 points in those games was a major reason.

Later, as a professional, Manning bounced back from all sorts of humbling defeats, most notably an early string to Bill Belichick’s Patriots. It’s evened out of late, including Manning and the Broncos decisively defeating New England in last season’s AFC title game.

Two weeks later though came that avalanche loss to Seattle, 43-8. Manning was sacked once, picked twice and could do little to stem the onslaught. The Seattle defensive front was too good, its secondary too quick and organized and its game plan too smart.

Now comes another chance, familiar if not always successful ground for Manning.

“Naturally you’re motivated anytime you play a team that beat you last year,” Manning said this week. “Being motivated or being mad doesn’t mean anything if you don’t go out there and execute and do your job.” Football is a team game, and even if quarterback is the most important position, there are limits to its influence.

There’s a reason Denver has started 10 players already this season who weren’t on the roster in the Super Bowl. That, most notably, includes an expected seven new defensive starters for Sunday’s clash in Seattle.

“We have different players,” Manning noted, including wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders, who has 14 catches for 185 yards in the first two weeks.

Manning is considered one of the – if not “the” – greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game though. He’s certainly widely hailed as the most cerebral. His constant play-calling at the line makes him the de facto offensive coordinator.

When it goes like it did in February, the sting is more than just physical … it’s a whack to Manning’s pride.

And it becomes about him. He’s the star, the guy in all the commercials. He understands that.

Peyton is 38 years old and been doing this a long, long time. He’s beyond getting too high or too low for any one game, which was a criticism of him in college and in the early part of his NFL career. To think the Seahawks are in his head (the way Spurrier and Belichick may have been) seems unlikely (at least yet).

Part of the challenge about the rematch is that it takes a great team to win so big against Manning in the first place. It’s not like many other people were beating up on those old Florida and New England teams. So, Peyton talks about the basics.

“You have to find a way to protect the ball, score some touchdowns in the red zone and avoid third and long,” he said.

That doesn’t mean anyone thinks he's just walking into CenturyLink Field like it’s any old Sunday.

Losses like that grind. Manning remembers everything about football, or at least everything involving him. He has 497 career regular-season touchdown passes and should soon join Brett Favre as the only players to surpass 500.

That’s a lot of catches, and it’s one thing for Manning to think back and recall some of, say, the 112 he threw to old Colts teammate Marvin Harrison. It’s another to recall some of the obscure scores and short-time teammates who reeled in just one.

Yet there Manning was this week, fielding the challenge from the media. How about Trevor Insley, a tight end who played 11 career games in 2001 and caught one TD in a Week 13 victory over Atlanta for a forgettable 6-10 Colts team?

“Caught it up the left sideline against Atlanta on a fake screen pass,” Manning said.

How about Gijon Robinson, another tight end with one career touchdown reception?

“Gijon Robinson caught a goal line naked against New England in New England,” Manning said of the 2010 Colts season. “Fake bootleg left, rolled right … wide open because no one thought we were going to be throwing to Gijon Robinson.”

Manning laughed at the ridiculousness of recalling it all.

“That’s pretty disturbing, isn’t it?” he said.

Actually, it’s just Manning. And it’s why he’s won so many games, why he’s been playing big ones for so long and why, it seems, the public focuses on those losses. He can’t just move on. It’s a battle of wits and another shot at redemption.

Manning has always been about the memories.

Sunday in Seattle is just the latest.

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