Written by Jeff Legwold at ESPN.com
If continuity is king in the NFL, then Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning has reached the league’s title game a much different way.
Super Bowl 50 will be the fourth time Manning has been behind center in the NFL’s championship game, and Gary Kubiak is the fourth different coach Manning has played for that advanced to the Super Bowl.
“I’ve enjoyed learning from coach Kubiak this year,” Manning said. “Continuity is always a great thing, but when you have a chance to play with some different coaches, you want to take advantage and learn from them. … I’ve learned something from all of them.”
Kubiak has joined a list that also includes Tony Dungy, Jim Caldwell and John Fox. Manning was the MVP of Super Bowl XLI, a 29-17 win over the Chicago Bears, which gave Dungy a ring.
Manning also started Super Bowl XLI, as the New Orleans Saints defeated the Colts 31-17. And Manning piloted the highest-scoring offense in the league’s history in Super Bowl XLVIII where the Seattle Seahawks cruised to a 43-8 victory.
he Broncos won four consecutive division titles under Fox and 38-10 in regular-season games in the three seasons. In the wake of the Broncos’ playoff loss to the Colts a year ago, Fox “parted ways” with the team and Kubiak was hired.
The Broncos finished 12-4 this season, going 7-2 in Manning’s nine starts and 5-2 in backup Brock Osweiler’s seven starts.
“It just tells you what he’s all about,” Kubiak said of Manning. “Peyton has been successful throughout the course of his career in everything that he has done. He’s been successful as a player, as a person, he’s a tremendous person. It was tough for him, we came in new, he’d been running a system for a while, we have some things we believe in, we tried to mesh two things together, and I know it was tough on him.”
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