Since the moment he signed in Denver, it's been all about Peyton Manning, and that's true today more than ever.

On Sunday night, Peyton broke one of the greatest individual records in sports, and showed that whenever he retires, he's likely to have reset the bar in another stratosphere.

This is, naturally, as fine a time as any to celebrate Manning's illustrious career, even while he shows no signs of slowing down.

First, there was the throw that broke the record.

Peyton himself described the play for Peter King and the MMQB:

“But the play we decided to run next we’d tried in the preseason game when we played San Francisco out there. Only this one was on the other side of the formation, and it was [wide receiver] Andre Caldwell, not Demaryius. In the preseason, I missed Caldwell—I threw it a tad too quick and threw it outside. But I learned something from that. I took mental notes from it. Take your time, hold onto it one more tick, and throw it outside so only your guy can get it, but not too far outside. Give him a chance. This time I gave Demaryius an extra half-second to let the route develop, and it was there.” The throw was perfect.

Here's what Matt Bowen saw on the play, for Bleacher Report:

Look at this throw from Manning with Thomas now in a position to work away from the defender’s leverage on the out cut. The Broncos quarterback puts this ball on the upfield shoulder and gives his wide receiver the chance to make a play, with Thomas dragging the back foot to secure touchdown pass No. 509 to break the record. That’s a perfect ball given the coverage look from the 49ers and the technique from Brock to play off-man (and pedal) inside the deep red zone.

The monkey-in-the-middle celebration, although cute at the time, was apparently staged, as Joan Niesen explains for SI:

So that was why Manning looked to be dancing at practice on Friday as the Broncos began stretching. He was clued in all along. That was why he stopped almost immediately when he noticed reporters and cameras. Of course he was one step ahead. He has been his entire career... So Peyton planned the prank on himself? And Thomas glanced down a bit, and looked a little sheepish. “Kind of,” he said, and he laughed, as if he was just fully realizing the extent to which Manning pulls the strings.

We now know Peyton wasn't legitimately worried about where the ball might end up. But at least one man felt a pang of concern - HOF executive Joe Horrigan, as told to Ben Hochman of the Denver Post:

"It's a lot of fun when you do things like this, literally down on the field, but I don't know if I was more nervous or Peyton," Horrigan said in a hallway by the press box Sunday night, his right leg carefully nestled against the bag with the ball. "Hey, you don't know what could go wrong. My fear is that some excited wide receiver is going to catch the ball and then throw it into the stands."... "It was obviously a great pressure release for everybody, but I'm seeing the ball go up in the air, and I'm thinking — where's it going?" Horrigan said. "My eyes never left the ball. "Peyton took it and went to the bench. We had prearranged that the equipment manager would bring it over to me. I put it in a Hall of Fame bag — I wanted people to understand I wasn't just some guy in a tie taking the ball."

Manning's boss, John Elway, tells Jeff Legwold (ESPN) why he thinks Peyton has thrown for so many more touchdowns than he did:

"He gets in the red zone and he gets touchdowns because he's got great anticipation and the ability to go over the top of people, drop the ball in, into small spaces with the highest accuracy, rather than having to try to drive the ball in between defenders," Elway said. "I didn't have the ability to go over the top like that, at least not very much. That was not my strength. I had to, and would have much rather, try to push the ball in between people, you know what I mean? That was instead of coming in over the defender. It opens up more things, but it takes a tremendously accurate throw with unbelievable touch."... "It's just so difficult to throw the ball down there, period," Elway said. "And to do consistently, do it at game speed, with that kind of touch, over and over again, is so rare. He's so good at it, we just assume that's how easy it is, but I'm here to tell you it's difficult, it's rare and it's why he has so many touchdowns when so many other people would be kicking field goals."

As for Manning's teammates, they seem to appreciate his greatness more than might be expected of anyone with such a constant, close-up view. Chris Harris, also shared by Legwold at ESPN:

"Oh yeah, you see all the phones come out like that, you knew we were going to throw the ball … and that's one of those plays people will ask you about when you're old. To us that's Peyton Manning, he does something people want to remember every time he throws the ball."

Frank Schwab, for Shutdown Corner, says Peyton's legacy is in how much better he's made his teammates over the years. Emmanuel Sanders describes the pressure of playing with Manning:

"You don't want to mess up," Sanders said. "So every night I go home and I study my butt off, just so I don't disappoint '18.' Everyone knows that he doesn't have too many more years left in his career, and he wants to go out a Super Bowl champion again, and I don't want to be the one holding this group back."

Demaryius Thomas shares Schwab's sentiment, as told to Judy Battista for NFL.com:

Thomas said when Manning first arrived, he watched as Manning changed the way the Broncos did things -- from running routes to watching film. It has made, Thomas said, everyone around Manning better. And, Thomas said, he is convinced Manning is the best quarterback to play. That is a debate that will follow Manning, and that football that Horrigan stowed in his bag, to the Hall of Fame.

Robert Mays, at Grantland, reminds us not to just appreciate Peyton as a whole, but what he did on Sunday night:

It’s fitting that on the day he broke the career passing touchdown record, arguably the greatest quarterback ever played arguably the greatest game any quarterback could play. Manning was basically perfect last night, and as a team, the Broncos put together easily their best win of the year.

Paul Klee (Gazette) thinks we're a long way from seeing the end of Peyton in Denver:

Most of the great ones slumped toward the end of their career. Age tends to win. Jordan wasn’t Jordan as a Wizard. Aaron hit 20, 12 and 10 home runs in his final three seasons. Gretzky scored nine goals his final season of hockey. But did anything about Sunday night at Sports Authority Field suggest Manning is regressing?... He looked like a guy who’s still warming up. The 38-year-old looked like a guy who could play another three or four or five seasons with the Broncos and put all of these records so far out of reach you’d need a time warp to reach them.

Mike Klis (Denver Post) says Peyton is better than ever:

Manning is 38 but he appears to be a long way from washed up. He's not the same quarterback he was in Indianapolis, when he threw 399 touchdowns in 13 playing seasons, or 30.7 per season. He's better. With help from a glove he started wearing on his passing hand late in the 2012 season, Manning recovered enough from his neck injury and nerve damage to throw 37 touchdowns in 2012, his first season with the Broncos and an NFL-record 55 last season. And he has 19 touchdowns through seven games this year — an average 45.1 per year.

Of course, the trolls of the sportswriting world see this as an opportunity to remind everyone that Peyton has won but one SB title. Look, it's fine if folks want to say Joe Montana and Tom Brady are two of the very best, and that their ringz confirm that claim.

The problem, of course, is everything else that comes along with that.

Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning are equal to John Elway, and those three are better than Peyton Manning and Brett Favre, who are mere equals of Brad Johnson, Jeff Hofstetler, and yes, Trent Dilfer.

All of those guys are better than Dan Marino and Jim Kelly, and all, except for Montana, pale in comparison to Terry Bradshaw.

It's flat-out ridiculous.

And yet...

Jarrett Bell, USA Today:

For all of Manning's greatness, though, the real intrigue will come a lot later in the season. Can he win the big one again? Fair or not, that's still the ultimate measuring stick for an NFL quarterback — especially in this pass-happy era. It's why owning all the records doesn't mean that Manning, one of the greatest, is necessarily the greatest quarterback in NFL history. See Joe Montana.

Chris Chase, FTW:

The touchdowns are great, but only one number matters in football. Manning might finish with twice as many touchdown passes as Joe Montana. He’ll likely be 100 clear of Tom Brady. But unless he narrows the deficit in titles, those are pyrrhic victories.

Even a pair of hometown writers, including Mark Kiszla, couldn't resist, for the Denver Post:

What Manning needs, however, to elevate him above John Elway and Joe Montana to become the greatest QB of all time can't be found in the record book. It must be earned on the field, in the Arizona desert, on the first day of February. The record is in Manning's pocket. But the real quest has only just begun.

David Ramsey also went there, for the Gazette:

Who ranks as the greatest quarterback in NFL history? Maybe Joe Montana. Maybe John Elway. Maybe John Unitas. And, someday, maybe Manning. Manning will not climb to the top of the all-time list with one Super Bowl victory. He requires another title. Manning might throw 650 touchdowns before he's through, but the only satisfying crown to his legacy is another NFL championship.

And as usual, Mike Tanier offers a more (the most?) mature perspective on it all, writing for Bleacher Report: