What Do You Do When It's Gone?

Peyton Manning could barely face the media tonight after a disappointing start to the 2013 PSAS season. When watching him at the podium, one couldn't help but think of an old cowboy, who may still have a enough strength to get the job done eventually, but has noticeably lost a step since his old dog succumbed to the gravity of existence. His bottom lip quivered as he looked off into the projection of the embarrassing replays running on a loop in his mind's eye, and boy, there were plenty of bad replays from tonight's game. On thirty-five different occasions, Peyton Manning threw the ball and his intended target didn't score a touchdown.

It's never easy to watch old age creep into the spines of your G0dz. There was a time when even the most devastating of natural disasters couldn't throw Peyton off his game, but sadly, those days are long gone. "We knew they were gonna use some kinda electromagnetic weapon, and we prepped all week for a thunderstorm at kickoff, but no matter how hard you prepare, there's still gonna be some hiccups. Tonight, there were just too many. I don't want to say if this is the end, or what tomorrow holds, but you aren't gonna last very long in this league throwing seven touchdowns a night, that's for sure. Thunderstorm or otherwise, this is on me."

Of course, we've all grown up with, or raised our own children on, the story of Peyton Manning facing Rex Grossman during the only downpour in Super Bowl history. Grossman's weather weapons caused thirteen incompletions that night, and Peyton barely made it out of the stadium alive, only saving 87,000 others in the process. Tonight's display brought back the same horrible memories.

"It's really-- daggummit, I told myself I wasn't gonna get all dusted up about this." A kleenex salesman could've made a fortune walking through the hoards of reporters who'd come to see one of their heroes pay his final respects to the football G0dz. "You just, look, you play this game your whole life-- from the moment you can run, they put a helmet on your head and a ball in you hand. Then to come out one day, and know, you just don't got it anymore-- well, it puts a sting in a part of your body you didn't know you had. And y'all'll see it too, it may not be a football, for most of you it won't be; it'll be picking up a pen, or opening a soda pop bottle, and you'll look at your hand and feel betrayed. That's how I felt out there tonight, and I'm sorry y'all had to see that."

There was no clapping as Peyton descended from the podium, into the suddenly anonymous life of an ex-great. The room was filled with the sound of camera flashes, and maybe that's fitting. Maybe the acknowledgement of one's greatness isn't measured by how loudly they're thanked by fans and journalists when they tip their cap one last time, but by how startling their humanity is when it finally defeats their myth.