He’s Aiming for Fast Pass

Go for a drive with Peyton Manning, and be prepared to ride shotgun. It’s as if he’d sooner surrender the football than the steering wheel.

“I like to be the one who decides where we’re going,” said Manning, a confessed control freak.

Is it any wonder the Indianapolis Colt offense suits him so well, allowing him to audible out of plays twice and sometimes three times before the snap? His Sunday drives have captured the attention of the football world, particularly now that he’s five touchdown passes away from breaking Dan Marino’s record of 48, set in 1984.

Five touchdown passes might sound like a lot, but Manning, who plays at Houston today, has thrown 15 in his last three road games. In fact, in a 49-14 victory over the Texans at Indianapolis, he threw five touchdown passes and averaged a gaudy 17.8 yards a completion.

Many of the Texans staggered away from that defeat believing the Colts had run up the score on them, piling on touchdowns after the game had been decided. Manning disagrees.

“I’m not going to get into the whole fourth quarter,” he said. “But Coach [Tony] Dungy, there’s not a classier coach in the league, and we followed his orders. It was a good win the first time, but it’s a totally different ballgame [today].”

Even for Manning, who often appears able to score at will, dominating an AFC South team twice in a season is a tall order. Since 2002, the Colts are 8-1 against division rivals the first time they play them, and 5-3 the second time. Manning tends to throw fewer touchdowns and more interceptions the second time around, and his average passer rating drops from 112.0 to 91.5.

Regardless, as long as Manning stays sound, Marino’s record is almost sure to fall in the regular season’s final four weeks. The former Miami Dolphin star is bracing for the inevitable.

“I definitely think he’s going to throw more than 48,” Marino said. “Now how many that is depends on the kind of game he’s playing in. Of late, he’s had to play in some games where he’s had to score a lot of points because, early on, other teams have been scoring on him. I think he’s going to get well into the 50s.”

Even more important than Manning’s right arm is his right-hand man, running back Edgerrin James, who has 1,291 yards rushing this season, second in the league by 14 yards to Curtis Martin of the New York Jets. So much of Manning’s ability to hit open receivers is predicated on convincing play-action fakes to James, mock handoffs that momentarily freeze defenders concerned with playing the run.

“If he can make a linebacker take one step, a half-step [toward the line of scrimmage] the guy’s beaten,” said Eric Dickerson, a Hall of Fame running back. “Even a guy who jerks forward, he’s beaten. That’s all it takes.... Peyton’s the best I’ve ever seen do that.”

It used to be that Indianapolis attacked teams with the phenomenal trio of Manning, James and receiver Marvin Harrison, a triumvirate nicknamed “Lethal Weapon 3,” but the arsenal has been expanded to include receivers Reggie Wayne and Brandon Stokley , and tight ends Marcus Pollard and Dallas Clark. Each week, it seems, another of Manning’s targets steps into the spotlight.

“We don’t spend a lot of time watching film together,” Manning said, referring to himself and his receivers. “But what we do is ... we visualize. I’ll say, ‘Hey, here’s what Tennessee’s going to do,’ or, ‘Here’s what they might do. I want you to run this and make this adjustment.’

“And those guys can see it in their head, which I think is a real key to being a special player.... Some guys have to write it down on a notebook or on a bulletin board. [But] if you can see it in your head on a Wednesday practice, then you can see it in the game on Sunday.”

Even though his playing career is long over, Dickerson still closes his eyes and envisions what it might be like to line up at running back behind Manning.

“If I’d have had this guy when I was playing, it would have been like stealing,” said Dickerson, who set the single-season rushing record with 2,105 yards in 1984. “Oh, my goodness! If I’d have had a quarterback, I would have had 2,500 yards, and I wouldn’t even have needed the carries. Because the thing I like about Peyton is, he knows what he’s going to do right away.”

These days, the only time Manning hesitates is when he’s asked about the record.

“It really hasn’t crossed my mind, as far as that idea,” he said in a recent conference call. “Like I said, the opportunity is to go down there and try to get a win and try to capture the AFC South. It’s a competitive conference, and I know I’ve repeated it over and over, but just to be able to get into the playoffs in the AFC is quite an accomplishment.”

Later, after being asked again about the record and again sidestepping the question, he said, “I hate to keep killing you with these boring answers, but I just can’t get into it.”

Translation: Be quiet and let me drive.

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Then and Now

Peyton Manning’s 2004 statistics compared with Dan Marino’s 1984 numbers through 12 games:

*--* Category Manning Marino Team Record 9-3 11-1 QB rating 126.3 108.9 Attempts per TD 8.8 12.3 Times sacked 7 6 Passing yards 3,621 3,678 TD/Int 44/9 32/12

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Source: Stats Inc