He's called his last "Omaha!"
Humbled by age and confronted with a script even he couldn't flip, Peyton Manning called it a career some two weeks shy of 40.
A chronically sore throwing shoulder and some deep bruises to his reputation recently — one, a sexual harassment claim dating back to his college days; the second, allegations he used human growth hormone during his lost 2011 season — may have affected the timing. It probably didn't hurt, either, that Manning's chance to walk away a champion owed more to the quality of Denver's defense than his own diminished skills.