ENGLEWOOD – The last time the Denver Broncos visited Foxborough, they blew a 24-0 halftime lead over Tom Brady & Co. This time around, they’ll bring a much-improved defense to New England along with – get this – a better quarterback.
Although he’s not piling up the statistics at quite the gaudy rate he did during his record-shattering 2013 season, Peyton Manning is more accurate, effective and efficient at age 38 than he was at 37.
Or 27, for that matter.
“He’s more comfortable; that’s what it is. He’s just gotten more and more comfortable,” Broncos cornerback Chris Harris Jr. said. “I mean, the game slowed down for him a long time ago. We’ve got the weapons, too. You put those weapons with Manning, and all he has to do is put the ball out there.”
Which Manning is doing better than ever:
He’s completing 69 percent of his passes this season, up from 68.3 a year ago.
His passer rating is an NFL-best 119.0, up from 115.1.
And he’s gaining an NFL-high 8.5 yards per pass, up from 8.3.
If he keeps this up, he’ll set career highs for completion percentage and touchdown-to-interception ratio (7.3) while challenging the career-high 121.1 passer rating he set in 2004.
“Maybe when I’m his age, I’ll be playing as well as that,” said Brady, who’s 37 and playing pretty darn good himself nowadays.
Manning didn’t take offense to his old friend calling him a geezer.
“That’s the cold, hard facts,” Manning said.
Despite their ages, Brady and Manning both remain at their peak. Each threw for 14 touchdowns in October, marking the first time in NFL history that two quarterbacks have had that many touchdown passes in a month.
When they meet for Brady vs. Manning XVI on Sunday afternoon, neither will rely on the deep ball like they could earlier in their respective careers. But Manning’s strength is back to his pre-neck surgery days of 2010, and he is flashing the downfield pass more than he ever has since joining the Broncos in 2012.
Patriots’ head coach Bill Belichick on Wednesday called Manning “the best quarterback that I’ve coached against” and said he sees “no weaknesses in his game.”
Manning returned the compliments, calling Belichick and Brady a “double whammy,” one that’s beaten him 10 times in 15 tries.
Of course, Manning won the last meeting, 26-16 in the AFC championship in Denver in January, the second time in three tries he’s beaten Brady for the right to go to the Super Bowl.
When Manning arrived in Denver in 2012 after his tearful goodbye from the Colts, his future was as cloudy as a Rocky Mountain snowstorm. But he’s been even better ever since trading the horseshoe on his helmet for the orange-mane mustang.
He’s averaged 2.84 touchdown tosses in his 39 regular-season games with the Broncos after averaging 1.91 per game during his 13 seasons in Indianapolis before missing all of 2011 after neck fusion surgery.
And his .821 winning percentage in Denver (32-7) is better than his .677 mark (141-67) with the Colts.
Manning’s figures and ever-growing familiarity with head coach John Fox’s system, offensive coordinator Adam Gase’s style and his teammates is the root of his resurgence.
“I feel like I’ve gotten a little better each year than I was the year before due to a little more comfort in this new culture, learning coach Fox’s philosophies, and it’s the second year under Adam, and learning the new teammates,” Manning said.
“So, I would say that is really all I have tried to focus on. I just haven’t made comparisons to the years I didn’t play here, and I do think as you get more comfortable with your surroundings and the players you are playing with, hopefully that leads to improved play on the field.”
Broncos beat
RB Ronnie Hillman said he “landed funny” on a shoulder and was limited Wednesday. ... RG Louis Vasquez was sick and didn’t practice two days after LG Orlando Franklin was sidelined by an illness. ... Patriots’ head coach Bill Belichick no longer harps on Wes Welker’s hit that sidelined CB Aqib Talib, now a Bronco, in the AFC title game. In January, he called it “one of the worst plays” he’d seen in nearly four decades of coaching. On Wednesday, he said he was “way past that” and heaped praise on Welker.
