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Myers: Peyton Manning looks finished, but still has a chance

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Peyton Manning has looked old and washed up with the Broncos this season, but he still can cap his legendary career with a Super ending.Michael Conroy/AP

Peyton Manning has looked old and washed up with the Broncos this season, but he still can cap his legendary career with a Super ending.

Peyton Manning looks just about finished but he’s also just one victory from his fourth Super Bowl.

It’s painful to watch.

“It’s just the way it is,” older brother Cooper told the Daily News on Monday. “I kind of marvel what he’s been able to do the last four years considering what he has been through. I just cherish every game that he is out there. You just got to play with the hand that you are dealt.”

Manning is Willie Mays falling down in center field playing for the Mets in the 1973 World Series, he’s Joe Namath dragging his body onto the field with the Rams and he’s Michael Jordan when he no longer had his legs with the Wizards. Manning will be 40 years old on March 24 and looks every day of it.

It’s been the worst year of his career: 9 TDs, 17 INTs, a partially torn plantar fascia that cost him seven starts and nearly his job, but now if he beats Tom Brady in the 17th installment of the greatest rivalry in NFL history, he has a chance to go out on top in Super Bowl 50.

“Definitely a tough year for Peyton,” his father Archie related to the Daily News in a text message Monday. “But he has worked hard to get healthy, helped Brock (Osweiler), stayed a “team” guy, and kept good attitude. He’s happy to be playing.”

Osweiler beat the Bears in Chicago in his first start on Nov. 22 and then brought the Broncos from 14 points down to beat the at-the-time undefeated Patriots in overtime in his second start Thanksgiving weekend. The doubts were not just if Manning would be healthy enough to get back on the field, but whether coach Gary Kubiak would put him back as the starter if he was cleared to play.

But Osweiler couldn’t sustain his early success and Manning got healthy enough for Kubiak to bring him off the bench in the third quarter of the final game of the season. Manning helped the Broncos beat the Chargers to secure the No. 1 seed.

Every play, every pass, was a struggle for Manning against the Steelers in the divisional round Sunday, but his 31-yarder to Bennie Fowler on a third-and-12 on the winning touchdown drive in the fourth quarter was the most important play of his season. Cooper and Archie watched the game together from a suite in Denver on Sunday – Eli was not at the game — and both turned away on the play when C.J. Anderson scored the winning touchdown on a one-yard run with three minutes remaining.

This is not what the Manning family and Manning fans have been used to watching since Peyton came into the league in 1998. Until this season, the only time he’d missed any games was in 2011, when he sat out the entire season in Indianapolis after his fourth neck surgery.

At one point, Manning loses his starting gig to Brock Osweiler (r.), however briefly.Ron Chenoy/USA Today Sports

At one point, Manning loses his starting gig to Brock Osweiler (r.), however briefly.

Certainly, it seems a given Manning will retire. His body may not hold up for another season and it’s also likely no team would want him. Is he planning to retire?

“I wouldn’t even ask him, put it that way,” Cooper said. “No sense in talking about something down the road right now.”

How did Peyton handle sitting out for nearly two months? “I truly probably left him alone more than I would have otherwise,” Cooper said. “He kind of kept his head down. I don’t think he was enjoying that. It’s as tough a couple of weeks as he’s had in a season. Peyton adores practice, he adores the routine, he adores being around the guys and trying to get better every day. All things that sound cliché’ish, but that’s what he just lives for. … Time heals and fortunately he got better in time to help the team.”

Now he’s got to beat Brady, who is 11-5 against Manning in their long rivalry. That includes 2-2 in the playoffs, and Manning has won the last two in the AFC Championship Game in 2006, when he was with the Colts, and 2013, with the Broncos.

“Being in the same profession for all these years and being at different events, we’ve developed a good friendship,” Brady said on his WEEI radio show Monday in Boston. “It’s pretty remarkable for him what he’s accomplished this season. To lead the team to a great win — the Steelers were playing as well as any team in the league, so that was a huge win for them. It will be fun to play another Peyton Manning-led team.”

Brady, who is about 16 months younger than Manning but is playing 10 years younger, has an insurmountable lead over him in Super Bowl appearances (6-3) and Super Bowl victories (4-1), but if Manning can get two more victories, beating Brady along the way, it will improve the narrative on his career, which has been great until it gets to the playoffs.

“I think Peyton’s legacy is in tact,” Cooper said. “He’s just trying to win one more game and take it like he always has, one game at a time. It’s hard to win football games. He doesn’t take anything for granted.”

John Elway had a magical ending to his career. But Elway didn’t have to beat Tom Brady.

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