Breaking Down Peyton Manning’s Performance Against the Steelers

September 12, 2012   ·   Christopher Hansen   ·   Jump to comments

What makes Peyton Manning so good? He didn’t play in a regular-season game for over 300 days and yet he dominated the Pittsburgh Steelers in his first game back. According to the NBC broadcast on Sunday night, Manning has lost 2.1 mph on his throws to the outside (H/T Peter King, SI.com). Any pitcher in major league baseball would tell you a couple miles per hour on the fastball can make a big difference.
Those same pitchers will also tell you that velocity isn't everything and a pitcher can be effective with command and smarts. Manning’s throws are accurate and few quarterbacks have ever been as smart on the field as him. Losing a little zip on his fastball isn’t going to make him a less effective quarterback.
Don’t mistake Manning’s football smarts for something it's not; he isn’t designing plays that are football equivalent of the quadratic formula. Manning just knows when to run what plays and against what defense. It’s closer to ...

Read Complete Article at Bleacher Report - NFL
Article is property of BleacherReport.com