Peyton Manning never hurries to leave practice. It explains why he works so quickly in games.
Timing means everything to Manning. The play clock. The practice horn. His watch. Everything relates to the tick and the tock.
Fortune favors the prepared. And Manning doesn’t let a second pass without finding an edge for the Broncos’ offense. The indelible image of the reigning MVP is that of a conductor at the line of scrimmage. The audibles, the “Omahas,” the arm flaps.
He’s directing. He is also buying time. Manning and his receivers know their codes so well that he can wait until under the six-second mark on the play clock to deliver a final signal.
Even veteran defenders can only disguise their looks for so long, leaving them at a disadvantage in their staredown with Manning.
Most quarterbacks possess chemistry with receivers on routes. But how many synch with them like iCloud before the ball is hiked?
“Before the snap is when you have to be sure that everybody knows the signals, knows the code words on all the presnap changes that we constantly make,” Manning said Tuesday. “It is not an easy offense to learn.”
Repetitions take on added importance. They are unlike any you’ve seen before. One recent day after practice, Manning stayed to work with receivers Emmanuel Sanders, a free-agent addition, and rookie Cody Latimer. Manning never threw a pass.
The receivers lined up and Manning marched through signals and codes. It was the equivalent of Miyagi training Daniel with “Wax on, wax off” in “The Karate Kid.”
“He’s striving for perfection in everything he does,” said Sanders, who describes Manning as one of the greatest leaders in NFL history. “It’s just a constant reminder that anything you want in life, you have to work hard to achieve.”
Sanders, who expects to play Sunday at San Francisco as he works through a right quadriceps issue, attempts to accelerate his learning curve by burying his head in the playbook for an hour a night. Veterans could skip extra steps without raising an eyebrow. But not in this offense. Not with Manning.
“There are a lot of things to cover, and we can’t do everything in the meeting room,” offensive coordinator Adam Gase said. “It is good for them to spend some time with him just to kind of get used to his mannerisms, how he operates at the line of scrimmage.”
Slot receiver Wes Welker arrived in Denver last season with a working knowledge of Manning’s pace. Tom Brady ran a similar system in New England. However, Manning takes the no-huddle to a different level, rarely turning his back on the defense as he walks to the line. Each second represents a data transfer to his SIM card. He has stolen a page out of John Wooden’s UCLA playbook: “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”
Does extra time to change a play lead to more touchdowns? The Broncos scored 36.4 points a game last season during the regular season — the next closest was New England at 27.9 — and produced 97 scoring drives averaging 3 minutes, 3 seconds.
“Can we be even faster? You can always try to play with it,” Welker said. “I am sure we will try. I know some of the quarterbacks who like to see everything, how the defense is going to line up and have an idea. But when the defense can’t even set up, it’s a good thing. The whole no-huddle thing, defenses are still trying to find answers for.”
For Manning, the solutions are in front of him. They are on the practice field, in the meetings, in the extra sessions. If he can dial up the right play, the ball comes out more quickly, the offense runs faster.
How efficient are the Broncos? Gase recently gulped a sugar-free Red Bull to get through a walk-through.
Only when the play clock is about to stop does Manning come to life.
“It’s why I know I have more work to do in the preseason. I have to get more consistent,” receiver Demaryius Thomas said. “And I have to make sure I am in rhythm with Peyton. It’s all about timing.”
Troy E. Renck: trenck@denverpost.com or twitter.com/troyrenck
Hurry, hurry!
The Broncos led the NFL in plays per game in 2013. Can they play even faster this season? The top teams, according to TeamRankings.com:
72.1
Denver
70.4
New England
69.8
Buffalo
69.2
Washington
69.2
Cincinnati
