In the spring of 2012, when John Elway was mounting his free-agent pitch to Peyton Manning, he posed a question to the aging quarterback that would remake the entire Denver Broncos franchise.
“We were meeting and I asked him, ‘I think you can get back to being the Peyton we all know, but the question is whether you think you can get back to being that player,’” Elway recalled to Yahoo Sports in August. “Without hesitation, he said ‘John, I know I can be that player again.’ That’s when I knew he was plan A, B [and] C for us to get to that Super Bowl level.