The Big One Doesn't Get Away

But they talked by phone every day. And in those talks Peyton seemed relaxed. All around him the story churned about the quarterback who can't win the Big One, who is tormented by his failings in the big games and was certain to be denied a place on the Olympus of quarterbacks who had both dominated their games and clutched Super Bowl trophies.

At one point the public debate around Super Bowl week turned to the Hall of Fame and whether with 37,586 passing yards at just 30 he would be a first ballot Hall of Famer without the title. The thought was that he needed to win Sunday night.

Yet Manning seemed unfazed by the talk. As the years have gone on, he has become less consumed with his legacy even as others debate it more than ever. Earlier in his career, Archie said, Peyton did more interviews and discussed these subjects because he thought it was his responsibility as one of the best players in the game. As time has passed, he has withdrawn, worrying less about what people think and more about his game.

When Archie visited him one Monday after a Colts game this season, he glanced at the clock and realized that "Monday Night Football" was on. He turned to Peyton and asked if he wanted to watch the game. His son shrugged and turned the television on but with the volume off.

No need to let the message of others define him, even in something as arcane as a football game on TV in which he isn't playing.

Lost in the legacy of Peyton Manning as the man who couldn't win the Big One is the fact that he has been nothing short of brilliant in these largest games. In the past it was always a fraying offensive line or disappearing receiver or flaky kicker who let him down. Manning still picked up the blitzes, found the open receivers and led his team into position to win. It was always Marvin Harrison or Mike Vanderjagt who failed.

Still it was Manning who carried the stain of their failures across the otherwise spotless parchment of his career. Then on Sunday the rain fell. It came in torrents, swirling in the stadium lights and dousing the field like never before in a Super Bowl. Archie Manning looked around the stadium baffled. "It's so weird to see rain down here," he said later.

For a time he worried this would come to hurt the Colts, a team accustomed to the comfort of their domed stadium and smooth artificial turf. But as the night wore on he saw Indianapolis was dominating. He saw his son was winning and soon the last blemish on Peyton Manning's career would be gone. "You hoped there would be justice," he said.

In the end there was. And Peyton Manning held the trophy just like all the other great ones whose legends had been validated had done before him. Then as he stood in the hallway beneath Dolphin Stadium, Archie Manning smirked.

"Kind of got that done," he said. "On with your career."