At the end of the playoffs following the 2006 NFL season, Peyton Manning filled in the final blank on a Hall of Fame resume.
Manning, a New Orleans native and former Newman High School quarterback, won his first NFL Championship when he helped lead the Indianapolis Colts past the Chicago Bears, 29-17, in Super Bowl XLI on Feb. 4, 2007.
An exclamation point came in the form of Manning being named the Super Bowl MVP after passing for 247 of the Colts’ 430 total yards and throwing one touchdown pass.
Manning’s performance in that postseason, and later in the 2007 regular season, also earned him recognition as the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Outstanding Professional Athlete for New Orleans for 2007.
The Super Bowl title shot to the top of Manning’s resume, which already featured a laundry list of accolades, including six Pro Bowls, two NFL MVP Awards, and countless passing records.
Manning, the first player chosen in 1998 NFL Draft, had had remarkable success throughout the first eight seasons of his career, but he and the Colts had been unable to reach the Super Bowl.
Then came the 2007 post-season. Manning’s and the Colts’ offensive statistics weren’t as gaudy as usual, but their efficiency, his leadership, and a rejuvenated defense proved to be a winning formula.
Indianapolis beat Kansas City and Baltimore to reach the AFC Championship against their primary nemesis, the New England Patriots, who had twice eliminated Manning from the post-season. It appeared Manning and the Colts might fall short of the Super Bowl once again as the Patriots took a 21-3 second-quarter lead.
But Manning led the biggest comeback in conference championship game history, which climaxed in an 80-yard touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter as Indianapolis prevailed, 38-34. He passed for 349 yards and a touchdown.
Manning downplayed talk about “getting the monkey off his back” and “being vindicated”.
“I don’t get into monkeys and vindication,” he said. “I don’t play that card. I know how hard I worked this season, I know how hard I worked this week.”
Two weeks later the Colts were champions, overcoming an eight-point first-quarter deficit.
“Nobody ever gave up,” Manning said. “We stayed calm and we truly won this championship as a team.”
They did so by beating a Bears team that had reached the Super Bowl by knocking out Manning’s hometown team, the New Orleans Saints, for whom his father, Archie, starred as quarterback from 1971-82, in the NFC Championship, 39-14.
The disappointment of the Saints falling tantalizingly short of their first Super Bowl in their 40 seasons, was tempered for New Orleanians as they watched a favorite son guide the Colts to the Super Bowl championship.
“Peyton Manning is a great player and a tremendous leader and he prepares and works,” Colts coach Tony Dungy said. “He does everything that you can do to win ballgames. If people think you have to win a Super Bowl to know that and validate that and justify that, it’s just wrong. I don’t think there’s anything you can say now, other than this guy is a Hall of Fame player and one of the greatest players to play the game.”
The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee began in 1957 when James Collins spearheaded a group of sports journalists to form a sports awards committee to immortalize local sports history. For 13 years, the committee honored local athletes each month. In 1970, the Sugar Bowl stepped in to sponsor and revitalize the committee, leading to the creation of the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 1971, honoring 10 legends from the Crescent City in its first induction class. While adding the responsibility of selecting Hall of Famers, the committee has continued to recognize the top amateur athlete in the Greater New Orleans area each month.
-www.AllstateSugarBowl.org-
