Old Man Ballers: Peyton Manning can join great old guys in sports

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — If your knees creak when you wake up, if you’ve lost count of how many pills you need to take throughout the day, if your hair has turned gray or gone away completely, you’re probably rooting for Peyton Manning this week.

Manning is trying to strike a blow for old men everywhere. At 39, the Denver Broncos quarterback can’t throw the ball like he used to. When he runs for a first down the world stops. Manning used to be a good athlete, but what we’ll see in Super Bowl 50 is a guy trying to get by on guile and experience and all those other buzzwords we use for old players.

“Certainly I have some physical differences, certainly since my major injury four years ago, and I think it’s about learning to adjust,” Manning said on Wednesday, referring to the neck injury that kept him out of the 2011 season. “To use the baseball analogy, the guy who used to throw 95-plus, as he gets older he can’t throw that same fastball but he can still work the corners of the plate and still strike a guy out.”

Tony Gonzalez is one of the greatest tight ends ever, and was also one of the greatest “old” players ever. In 2013, at age 37, he had 859 yards and eight touchdowns for the Atlanta Falcons and retired. Gonzalez changed his entire routine late in his career, from his nutrition to his workout regimen. What worked when he was 25 wasn’t working when he was 35.

“It sucks sometimes,” Gonzales said. “The older you get the harder it gets. The more time it takes to get ready. And you start having to play the game with your mind more than your body. Because your body can’t do what it used to do.”

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Super Bowl 50 is the biggest age difference between quarterbacks in NFL history. Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton is 26, can run over a linebacker or throw 60 yards to a receiver in stride off his back foot. Even though sports will always favor the young, we’ve seen older guys prevail before. So in honor of that guy at the gym wearing rec specs and his socks too high who can still find a way to get around his man and score, here are the best old man ballers in sports history, a group Manning hopes to join Sunday:

George Foreman: In many ways, Foreman is the patron saint of old man ballers. He was a destructive force in his prime, then faded away, and then came back. It started as a sideshow, but then Foreman became a contender. And a few days before his 46th (!) birthday, Foreman knocked out Michael Moorer to become the oldest heavyweight champion of all time. Then he went on to sell us all personal grills for our kitchens.

Brett Favre: Favre, despite taking a beating his entire career and not missing a game, had the best passer rating of his career in 2009, when he turned 40. Favre posted a 107.2 rating, thanks to 33 touchdowns and seven interceptions, and carried the Minnesota Vikings to the verge of an NFC championship. This of course came after Favre changed his mind on retirement like 24 times, but old guys sometimes have memory issues.

John Elway: As general manager of the Denver Broncos, Elway is Manning’s boss. And he can also talk to Manning about playing well into his late 30s. Elway won his first Super Bowl at age 37, then added another at age 38 for good measure. Then he retired and made sure for the rest of time he’d be the first name mentioned when people talk about retiring on top.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: You didn’t come here for an NBA lecture but you’re getting one anyway: Abdul-Jabbar is the most underrated athlete in basketball history, and perhaps in any sport. I get that Michael Jordan is the GOAT, but why is Abdul-Jabbar never mentioned in any of those conversations? He won six MVPs, was an NBA All-Star 19 times, won six championships (he won with two different franchises) and is the leading scorer in NBA history. He also finished in the top 10 in blocks 12 times, if you like defense. What more does a guy need to do?

Back on topic, Abdul-Jabbar was also dominating when he was an old man, by NBA standards. He won his old man baller card at the 1985 Finals, winning Finals MVP 14 years after his first Finals MVP award. He was 37. He went on to play four more seasons after that too, winning two more titles and averaging double-digit points every season, even scoring 10.1 points per game when he was 41. The skyhook aged well.

Gordie Howe: Howe scored 15 goals and had 41 points for the Hartford Whalers in 1979-80. Not that great of a season for the all-time legend … until you realize he was 51 years old. That’s insane. Howe played in the NHL in five different decades. And it’s likely that even in his final season nobody wanted to fight him.

Jaromir Jagr: If Manning fails, you can always turn on a Florida Panthers game and marvel at Jagr. Jagr, at age 43, has scored 15 goals and appeared in the NHL All-Star Game last week even though he begged fans not to vote for him because he wanted the rest and the 3-on-3 format might kill him. But fans voted him in anyway because we love the old guys.

Jimmy Connors: Why were so many people, even those who didn’t care about tennis, captivated by Connors’ famous 1991 U.S. Open run? Because he was 39 and he was beating players who weren’t even in kindergarten when he started in pro tennis.

Nolan Ryan: Here are Ryan’s stats from the 1991 season: 2.91 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 203 strikeouts in 173 innings. He was 44 years old! Ryan’s unbelievable longevity lasted until he finally retired following the 1993 season, when he was 46. In that 1993 season, he also was involved in the most famous fight in baseball history, when he grabbed Robin Ventura in a headlock and started punching him in the head. Old man strength, y’all.

Satchel Paige: Paige scoffs at Ryan being on the list at the young age of 46. The all-time great pitcher was an All-Star in 1953 for the St. Louis Browns, at the age of 46, and somehow pitched in one game for the Kansas City A’s in 1965. He was 58. Fifty. Eight. And he threw three scoreless innings, allowing just one hit.

Jack Nicklaus: If Manning wins a Super Bowl, a little more than a month after many people wondered if he’d ever play another NFL snap, it would be unlike any other sports story we’ve seen. Nicklaus might be the best comparison, even in an entirely different sport.

Nicklaus was 46 and not expected to win the 1986 Masters. But he had one more week of glory in him, surprising everyone by storming back on the final Sunday to win his 18th major. It was a championship out of nowhere, and it was awesome. It’s still one of the great stories and moments in sports history. If Manning can come up with one more championship performance on Sunday, the reaction might be similar to Nicklaus’ improbable Masters win. Yes, sir.