Sports Metaphor

 Eight years ago, the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl Fifty. They did this in spite of having a stellar game from one of the game's premier field generals, Peyton Manning. 

It's hard to look back on the season that preceded Super Bowl L, as it was known in Rome, without remembering the struggle that took place in the weeks and months leading up to The Big Game. As a Broncos fan, I was delighted when my team was clever enough to take a chance on this old guy whose best years had by his own account passed him by. Peyton Manning was a bit of a gamble, having been out of football for a year rehabbing from surgery to repair a bulging disc in his neck. 

He came to Denver at the ripe old age of thirty-six. As damaged goods. To the surprise of many, Peyton seemed to pick right back up where he left off, adding to his Hall of Fame resume, rewriting records that he had set himself and adding even more gloss to what had been a stellar career. Even with all those offensive fireworks, it took a couple of seasons to get the Broncos back to the Super Bowl. 

In Super Bowl Forty-Eight, the Broncos were embarrassed by the Seattle Seahawks, with a highlight reel that included the first snap going over Peyton's head, ending in a safety for the Seahawks. Manning did not throw a touchdown pass in that game.

So there was some grumbling around the Mile High City when the old guy was back the next year. In a season when he broke still more passing records, the Peyton's Broncos were unceremoniously bumped out of the playoffs in the first round. 

The next year, 2015, Manning agrees to a pay cut in order to return to play quarterback for Denver. He proceeds to miss seven games due to injury, and the folks around organized football figured he was through. In January 2016, Peytong came off the bench for the first and only time in his career and leads his team to a victory that ensures that the Broncos will have home-field advantage for the playoffs. 

Then he went out and beat Tom Brady in the AFC Championship game. But this didn't calm the critics, who were correct when they noted that his role was more one of game management than the pinpoint passer that he had been just a year before. 

Peytong Manning did not win Super Bowl Fifty. His team did. A swarming defense kept the Carolina Pahthers' quarterback Cam Newton from being able to settle in and operate as he was accustomed. Newton's two fumbles and one interception were enough to keep them from winning. Peyton Manning was essentially a non-factor in the game, throwing for just one hundred forty-one yards and no touch downs. His final pass was for a game-sealing two-point conversion that put the Broncos over the top. 

Peyton Manning retired from football a month after that. 

This is pretty much how I feel about Joe Biden's performance in the first debate. 

It's a metaphor.