NFL:In Peyton Manning's 15 year career, there has been a lone dent in his legacy. For all of his regular-season brilliance, Manning has, in all but one season, been unable to propel his team to the championship. Manning's teams have gone to the postseason 12 times, but in seven of the previous 11 trips, Manning's team has lost in their first play-off game.
Last night, with a new team, in what he said feels like a different body, Manning met that fate again, this time in a gut-wrenching 38-35 loss in double overtime that sent the Baltimore Ravens to the AFC championship game for the second year in a row, where they will play the winner of the Patriots-Texans game next Sunday.
With the game nearing the end of the first overtime, Manning rolled to his right to avoid pressure, then tried to throw across his body to the left. Much has been made about Manning's arm strength since he had four neck operations last year, but this mistake was as much mental as it was physical. The pass wobbled, and the Ravens' Corey Graham stepped in front of its intended target, Brandon Stokely. It was Graham's second interception of the day - he returned the first for a touchdown - and this one set up the winning 47-yard field goal by the Ravens' rookie kicker, Justin Tucker.
The Ravens stormed the field and the Broncos, the top seed in the AFC, trudged into their tunnel. When they review this season, they may wonder why one of the top-ranked defences in the league could not hold a lead with 41 seconds to play, in part because they did not seem to trust Manning to throw to get a final first down that would have ended the game.
That allowed the Ravens to have the ball one final time in regulation and the Broncos' defence, vulnerable to the deep pass all day, allowed Jacoby Jones to get behind it. He ran down the right sideline, and Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco, shifting in the pocket to avoid pressure on third down, launched a 70-yard pass for a touchdown that tied the score. Manning's resume is lengthy, but Flacco's is still forming, and that throw will now be the headliner.
If the Patriots beat the Texans in their divisional game tonight, it will be a rematch of last year's AFC championship game, which the Patriots won when the Ravens dropped a pass in the end zone that would have won the game and then missed a field goal with 11 seconds remaining that would have sent the game to overtime.
The tone for a game of big plays and wild swings was set nearly immediately. The Ravens had to punt on the opening drive and Trindon Holliday, the Broncos' diminutive returner who was released by the Houston Texans after the fifth game of the season, returned it 90 yards for a touchdown (with the Ravens nowhere near him for most of it), the longest punt return for a touchdown in postseason history. The Ravens wanted to keep Manning off the field as much as possible, but this was clearly not what they had in mind.
What they did plan, though, was to attack the Broncos' cornerback Champ Bailey with the speed of receiver Torrey Smith, a mismatch that revealed Bailey may no longer be able to cover the best receivers without help. When the Ravens got the ball back after the punt return, Flacco - playing one of his finest games, and facing little pass rush early in the game - drove the Ravens with the help of a 25-yard defensive pass interference penalty drawn on an incomplete pass down the right sideline that seemed designed precisely to draw the flag.
Once the Ravens got to their own 41-yard line, they set Smith loose on Bailey on a deep route down the middle of the field. Smith moved easily past Bailey and reeled in the 59-yard touchdown pass to tie the score with less than five minutes elapsed. Then the Ravens, who were beaten soundly at home by the Broncos in Week 15 of the regular season when their defence was struggling with injuries, served notice that they would not go as quietly in this game.
With the Broncos unable to run as effectively as they did in that regular-season game, when they ran 43 times, Manning was forced to throw more, even though he was wearing a glove on his throwing hand, with which he fidgeted during warm-ups in the single-digit cold. On the third play of the Broncos' next drive, Manning tried a short pass to his right for Eric Decker.
Decker bobbled the ball and it popped in the air, picked off by cornerback Corey Graham, who returned it 39 yards for a touchdown. In little more than five minutes, 21 points had been scored. But then the teams settled down, perhaps numbed by the cold, and the Broncos went on a long drive, mostly made up of Manning passes, including a 21-yarder to Jacob Tamme in traffic on third down. Then, in a throwback to their days in Indianapolis, Manning lofted a perfectly placed throw to Stokely, who fended off a defender at the line of scrimmage and ran for the right corner of the end zone.
This might be the most complete team Manning has ever been on, but it took until the second quarter for the Broncos' pass rush, a hallmark of their season, to finally show itself. With the Ravens driving again, the rush finally forced Flacco into a throwaway with 11:20 remaining in the second quarter.
That gave Manning the ball back, and he finally began to get into a rhythm, driving the Broncos from their own 14-yard line. On first down from the Ravens' 14, Manning put another pass right over the defender's shoulder, this time for Knowshon Moreno and a 14-yard touchdown.
In the regular season, that might have been too much for the Ravens to overcome. When the Ravens failed to convert a fourth-and-one, and gave the ball back to Manning on the Ravens' 36-yard line, it seemed nearly certain that the Broncos would begin to pull away. But Manning had two incompletions and coach John Fox opted to try for a 52-yard field goal with 1:21 remaining in the first half. But Prater's foot dragged in the dirt near the hash mark, and the field goal fell well short, giving Flacco and Smith another chance to go after Bailey.
Flacco completed two short passes. Then Smith took off down the right sideline again, this time letting Bailey go just a bit past him, before pulling in a 32-yard touchdown pass that tied the score at the half. The Broncos had chosen to get the ball to start the second half, and that proved fortunate. Holliday, deep in the end zone, took the kickoff out and returned it 104 yards for a touchdown that stunned the Ravens and seemed to give the Broncos another chance to put them away. But a game that started so quickly ground to a halt in the third quarter, accompanied by a series of penalties that required long conversations and reviews by the officials. Flacco fumbled, but the Broncos could not convert.
Then Manning fumbled and finally, near the end of the third quarter, Ray Rice scored on a one-yard run to tie the score at 28-28.
The Broncos nearly pulled away again, this time on a touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas that gave the Broncos a 35-28 lead. It was the most points the Ravens have ever given up in the postseason. But Baltimore's offence, for so long in the shadows of its defence, gave the Ravens another chance. Flacco completed a pass in the middle of the field on third down to Anquan Boldin. The game, though, seemed tocome down to a fourth-and-five play with 3:16 remaining. Flacco placed the ball perfectly for tight end Dennis Pitta. But Pitta, with the ball in his hands, let it loose, with the Broncos' Mike Adams poking his hand in to jar it loose.
The fans in Denver began to celebrate, shaking the stadium with their jumping. But when the Broncos could not convert enough first downs to keep the clock running, Flacco got one more shot. It was all he needed to begin to send Manning's home early again, in a new place but with the same result. - New York Times Service
Packers soundly beaten by 49ers
Second-year quarterback Colin Kaepernick out-dueled reigning NFL Most Valuable Player Aaron Rodgers to lead the San Francisco 49ers to a 45-31 win over the visiting Green Bay Packers in last night’s other play-off. The emphatic victory lifted the 49ers into the National Football Conference title game against the winner of tonight’s showdown between the top-seeded Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks.
Kaepernick had a sensational game, setting a National Football League (NFL) playoff rushing record for a quarterback by gaining 181 yards, including scoring gallops of 56 and 20 yards. He also threw a pair of touchdown passes in the romp. A 31-yard field by David Akers gave the 49ers a 24-21 lead after a see-saw first half, and San Francisco ran roughshod over the Packers in the second half, rushing for three touchdowns as they put the game out of reach.