DENVER – It felt like Turn Back the Clock Night in Denver, and how far back simply depended on which position you played.
For quarterback Peyton Manning, Sunday night’s game may have felt more like 2012 or 2013, when the offense set records and the critics had nothing to nitpick.
For anyone on the defense, maybe it felt like a throwback to 1977, when the vaunted Orange Crush put this franchise on the map.
And for the Broncos as a team, it was more like the late 1990s, when 7-0 starts and big wins over the Packers were the things that Super Bowl seasons were made of.
Manning played his best game of a difficult season and Denver turned a much-anticipated matchup with Green Bay into a 29-10 blowout – a game in which the scoreboard didn’t reflect the magnitude of the beatdown.
Denver outgained Green Bay 500 yards to 140. The defense held Aaron Rodgers to 77 yards, while Manning threw for a season-high 340, then took some joy in delivering a Peyton-like jab to the critics who said he was washed up.
“I don’t look at this like an ‘I told you so’ moment because I don’t really listen to what you say in the first place,” he said. “That’s kind of been my approach.”
The Broncos used the occasion of playing the Packers to induct owner Pat Bowlen into their Ring of Fame, and also bring back members of their first title team – the 1997 squad that beat Green Bay in the Super Bowl.
The Broncos won it again the next season, too, and this year’s team is the first to go 7-0 since those 1998 champions.
TYING FAVRE: Manning’s 186th career regular-season win tied him with Brett Favre for the most all time, and he can set the NFL record next week at Indianapolis, where he registered 141 of those wins.
