For NFL receivers, Peyton Manning a good catch

David Leon Moore, USA TODAY Sports | USATODAY

DENVER — Even after four neck surgeries and a full season of not playing football and all the questions about whether a 36-year-old, rebuilt, rusty Peyton Manning was still an NFL difference-maker...

He was already making a difference.

Again.

Shortly after he signed a free-agent contract last spring to replace Tim Tebow at quarterback for the Denver Broncos, Manning was on the phone recruiting veteran tight end Joel Dreessen, a free agent who was on the verge of re-signing with the Houston Texans.

"If he hadn't signed here, I'd probably have stayed in Houston," Dreessen says. "It's no secret that whoever he plays with, he makes them better."

Then Manning was calling all the players in the Broncos passing game and organizing unofficial workouts on Denver high school fields. It took young wide receiver Eric Decker about a half-second to agree to whatever, whenever.

"It was like summer school — I mean, it doesn't really count," Decker says.

"But you showed up because you knew you had to be there."

Once training camp arrived, Manning demonstrated to his new teammates that his reputation for an unwavering work ethic was well-earned, and that he expected no less from them.

"If you don't put the work in, you won't be playing for Peyton for long," says veteran wide receiver Brandon Stokley, who played with Manning in Indianapolis and has reunited with him this season on the Broncos.

Give Manning a few months with a team, and it's no surprise he can put together the kind of passing game he and the Broncos had against the Oakland Raiders Sunday, when Manning completed 30 of 38 passes for 338 yards and three touchdowns in a 37-6 victory.

Give him 13 years as the starter with a team, like he had with the Indianapolis Colts, and he can make them consistent title contenders. With the Colts, Manning played in two Super Bowls, winning one, and was named the NFL's MVP four times.

He ranks third in career NFL passing yardage behind Brett Favre and Dan Marino.

Manning, who on Sunday will lead the Broncos (2-2) against Tom Brady and the Patriots (2-2) at New England, has done more than enough to assure his future enshrinement in the NFL Hall of Fame.

Along the way, for the wide receivers and tight ends who caught his spirals as well as his occasional wobblers and also adapted to his frenetic traffic-cop routine of changing plays at the line of scrimmage, Manning improved their careers and lives in innumerable ways, padding their statistics and their bank accounts, enhancing their understanding of the game -- and winning.

Manning's overall record as a starter in regular-season games is 143-69, and almost 20% of his losses came in his rookie year (3-13 in 1998). He has completed 4,781 regular-season passes to 73 different players. His targets have included sleek first-round draft picks from major college teams who look like they could be Olympic sprinters (hello Reggie Wayne), but also mid-rounders from small-time schools who look like they could be selling motor oil at AutoZone (hello Brandon Stokley).

Manning 'just a winner'

How much credit does Manning deserve for the five-year, $42.5-million contract former Indianapolis wide receiver Pierre Garcon signed with the Washington Redskins before this season?

Garcon, 26, laughs.

"Well, a lot of things went into me getting paid," he says, "but Peyton certainly put me in the right direction."

Manning has guided wide receivers and tight ends to career years. He has helped jump-start some careers and extend others.

There's the basic, obvious way he did it ...

"Well, playing with one of the best quarterbacks of all time is a benefit," says Broncos tight end Jacob Tamme, who, like Stokley, played with Manning in Indianapolis.

But it's much more than that, and a player such as Tamme, who while at Kentucky was the 2007 Southeastern Conference Scholar Athlete of the Year, is an example of the benefit of learning and playing with Manning.

Tamme, 27, was a fourth-round pick in 2008 and for two years backed up Indianapolis' star tight end Dallas Clark, catching just six passes in '08 and '09 combined. But when Clark went on injured reserve in Week 7 of the 2010 season, Tamme was an immediate factor in the Colts offense, starting the rest of the season and ending up with 67 receptions.

Tamme had put in the time on the field and in the film room with Manning. When opportunity met preparation, his career took off.

"I've learned a lot about the game just from the way he manages the game from

the quarterback position," Tamme says. "I've been able to learn a lot about how the game works and why we do certain things. That's what it takes to be on the same page with a guy who knows so much, like Peyton."

When Manning sat out last season, and Tamme shared the position with Clark, his numbers evaporated. He had 19 catches.

Now Tamme is sharing playing time with Dreessen, 30, who is new to playing with Manning but has already learned what a lot of receivers say — Manning has an uncanny knack for completing passes to receivers who either appear to be covered, or who are in fact covered.

"I can get my butt whipped, be all covered up, and he'll still throw it to a spot where I can catch it and the defender can't," Dreessen says. "That's what makes him so special. Plus the fact that he's just a winner. I played in the AFC South against him for five years. We'd jump up on him 17-0 every single game, but somehow he'd find a way to come back and win."

'Eye-opening' for Stokley

Ask Stokley, 36, for an example of how Manning makes a player better, and he'll point directly at himself.

Stokley was underwhelming as a young Baltimore Ravens receiver. A fourth-round pick out of Louisiana-Lafayette, he was tough and fast but wasn't developing.

He caught a touchdown pass in the Ravens' Super Bowl victory in the 2000 season, but in four years he caught a total of 60 passes.

Then he signed with Indianapolis. He was injured half of his first season with the Colts, but in 2004, his second season in Indy, he and Manning clicked.

It turned into a career year for Stokley: 68 catches, 1,077 yards, 10 TDs.

How much of that improvement was due to learning from and emulating Manning's work ethic? From picking his brain about reading defenses? From being in the right place at the right time to catch a ball that only Manning could throw? It's hard to say, Stokley says, but "a whole lot" seems to be the answer.

"I had six, seven, eight quarterbacks in my time in Baltimore, and coming from where I came from, it was pretty eye-opening to see how Peyton went about his work every day and what he expected of the receivers.

"Just the attention to detail. I really wasn't used to that. Especially from

the quarterback. You're used to hearing it from the coaches. But from the quarterback himself, that was eye-opening. It really made you hone in and focus. If you wanted to go out and make plays and get the ball thrown to you, you

really had to be on top of your game."

As a result, Stokley says, "you find yourself giving more, staying extra, putting in extra time on the practice field with him."

Stokley was the third receiver on the Colts behind one of the NFL's all-time

best receiving tandems -- Marvin Harrison and Wayne, who combined for seven

100-catch seasons and 15 1,000-yard seasons. They were undeniable talents,

first-round picks who were destined for stardom on any team. Harrison retired

after the 2008 season.

Wayne is still going strong, catching passes from Manning's successor, rookie Andrew Luck.

Would they have been as good with another quarterback?

"To the same extent? I doubt it. I really do," Stokley says.

Stokley thought he was going to retire after last season until Manning, who had been released by the Colts and was mulling where to sign, asked his old teammate to go to Duke University with him for spring workouts. Then Stokley got lured back to playing with Manning again, and now, besides still being a quality target, he's a sounding board for two promising third-year receivers — Decker and Demaryius Thomas — who are trying to develop a bond with Manning.

"The sky's the limit for them," Stokley says. "I see them getting better every week.

"They've put in a lot of hard work. That's been great to see. They're not afraid of hard work. That's what I saw with Marvin and Reggie. Those guys got after it every day. That's why they were so good. Wednesday, Thursday practice, it didn't matter. They were getting after it, and it showed on Sunday. I see that with Eric and Demaryius."

A special connection with Manning doesn't happen overnight, Garcon says.

As a rookie sixth-round pick out of Division III Mount Union in 2008, Garcon mostly sat and watched Manning throw to Wayne, Clark and Harrison, who was in his last season. Garcon caught just four passes. But in his next two seasons in Indy, he became a major target for Manning and caught a combined 114 passes.

"It took about a year, year-and-a-half, learning the playbook, getting the concepts down, getting on his page," Garcon says. "He always wanted us to prepare off the field. He expected us to know the playbook back and forth and the defenses' coverages. Picking up the Indianapolis offense was very tough. You had to remember a lot of things (and) know enough to make split-second adjustments and reactions."

Thomas, whom the Broncos think could become a big star, is going through it. When someone suggests to Thomas that it seems like there's a lot of stuff going on when Manning is at the line of scrimmage calling out plays, Thomas responds, "Too much stuff. ... You have to know what he wants. You have to know all the signals he's doing. You've got to read the defense at the same time. And sometimes you've got a defense changing it up. You might have two or three plays in your head, and you have to know which one to do depending on what type of defense it is.

"It's tough."

It's nothing that Harrison and Wayne and Clark and Stokley and Tamme and others haven't gone through on their way to the end zone — and the bank.

Garcon offers this solace to Thomas.

"What (Manning) taught me," he says, "and memorizing it and using it to the best of my abilities, has helped me and is still helping me in my career."

And what does Manning say about how he's managed to connect so successfully with so many different types of receivers through the years?

About what you'd expect.

"I know one thing," Manning says. "I know you can't do it if guys aren't willing to put the work in."

Contributing: Robert Klemko