Broncos kick-start year

John Riordan runs the rule over those hoping to impress in the new NFL season.

Normally the veteran player will turn the clock back on his own career when he delivers a performance of genuine greatness.

But on Thursday night in the Mile High splendour of Denver, Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning turned the entire NFL clock back a half century with an achievement for the ages against the Super Bowl champions, the Baltimore Ravens. Manning brought the NFL back to life with a bang, sending a record-equalling seven-touchdown passes through the many holes of a much changed Ravens defence. In the aftermath, as the superlatives darted around about the 49-27 win, he remained as cool and collected as ever.

“It took us a little while to get started,” he offered.

It wasn’t as composed at one newspaper in Ohio which got so excited that they managed to credit Denver Bronco Hall of Famer John Elway with the achievement in an embarrassing headline that rocketed around social media yesterday.

Elway guided the Broncos to a pair of Super Bowl titles in the 1990s but also managed to convince Manning to move to Denver. It was the perfect start to yet another season filled with intrigue.

If the Broncos were tipped before the game for AFC glory, they are now raging hot favourites as long as their main man can stay fit.

As it stands, only the Cincinnati Bengals offer anything resembling resistance in what is a weaker conference.

There are more interesting divisions in the NFC, where teams from the East and West offer up plenty of competition and no clear favourites.

Washington should have been a safe bet for the East if not the Super Bowl itself but then their star rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III saw his knee collapse underneath him on a bobbly Washington field in January during his team’s play-off defeat to the Seattle Seahawks. Since then, the former Baylor University player has been furiously rehabbing for the second time in his career and has been declared fit to start on Monday night against divisional rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles.

It has been a high-profile recovery fraught with claim and counterclaim — the player himself is desperate for game time while his conservative coach Mike Shanahan has taken every opportunity to publicly and privately reason with his key player, appealing for calm and most likely adjusting his team’s style of play around the fragility of RGIII’s battered knee. In 2012, he was a record-breaking rookie who combined his passing ability with a running game that was audacious at the best of times but ultimately got him into bother. There is no doubt he will take less risks this season and opt more often to throw the ball from the protective pocket set up by his offensive line.

It’s a natural instinct and tactical dilemma that Griffin’s opposite number on Monday night fully appreciates. Eagles quarterback Michael Vick entered the league a decade ago in a blaze of glory and essentially brought about a revolution in the game: a playmaker who could pass accurately but also rip defences apart with blistering speed. But then jail time and injuries forced Vick to face up to big choices about his career and its longevity.

The other two teams in the division, the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys, kick their seasons off in the late game in Dallas tomorrow. They enter this campaign on the back of underwhelming seasons last year and the Cowboys in particular bring with them the usual inflated expectations as they aim to take advantage of a weakened Washington team and an Eagles side with a new coach and a new approach.

The Giants, meanwhile, will remain under the radar as usual and will be a 50/50 shot as much for a play-off run as they are for finishing bottom of the competitive division.

In the NFC North, the Green Bay Packers are also in a bit of a transition phase but will always be a contender behind the genius of quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

In Chicago and Minnesota, meanwhile, they’re quietly confident but all eyes will be on Vikings running back Adrian Peterson who has colourfully predicted he will break the prestigious career rushing record in 2017.

On the final day of last season, he came dramatically close to breaking the season record, also held by Eric Dickerson, falling eight yards short of the magic figure: 2,105 yards. The NFC South will most likely head the way of the Atlanta Falcons while the NFC West will once again be an exciting shootout between Super Bowl finalists, the San Francisco 49ers, and the next-big-things from Seattle, the Seahawks.

49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick does not have to worry yet about the sort of constraints placed on RGIII and will once again be a threat from all angles.

They begin tomorrow against the Packers, a rematch of their classic victory in January when Kaepernick destroyed Green Bay with aggressive rushing. The memory of that stinging loss has led to some concern from the 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh that his mobile star will be targeted.

“You’re hearing a lot of tough talk right now. You’re hearing some intimidating type of talk, the same thing we were hearing a couple years ago,” Harbaugh said. “It sounds a lot like targeting a specific player. You definitely start to wonder.”

That clash of attitudes between angry defenders and upstart youngsters could well be the theme of the journey to the 48th Super Bowl in New Jersey next February.