There are many perks to playing in the NFL, ranging from untold riches to the right to pat other men on the butt whenever you want, no questions asked or judgments made. The downside is that, if you stick around long enough, your brain will be battered into goo and large guys will snap off your legs. (Ask Joe Theismann.) That’s why Peyton Manning is currently living the dream, for after a stretch of being hailed as a gridiron messiah wherever he went, he signed a five-year, $96-million deal with the Denver Broncos. Tragically, the actual season will soon begin and there suddenly will be a very real chance Ray Lewis will slam him to the ground repeatedly. And thus we are forced to think of the immortal words of Bartleby the Scrivener: “I would prefer Ray Lewis did not do that to me.”

If you asked a member of virtually any front office in the NFL what they want a quarterback to be like, they would say, “Peyton Manning.” They want a player tall enough to see over the offensive and defensive lines: Peyton is 6’5”. They want a guy who stays in the pocket and doesn’t run the ball: Peyton rushes for as many yards in a decade as Cam Newton might get in a half. Until depressingly recently, they would have explicitly wanted someone white: Peyton is only a shade above albino. Throw in Peyton’s work ethic, his knack for handling the media (Peter King called him one of his three favorite interviews; weirdly, the other two are Bill “Spygate” Belichick and Brett “Perhaps You’d Like to See a Photo of My Penis?-gate” Favre), and the fact that when you google “Peyton Manning” the word “rape” doesn’t show up as the second search result – try it with Pittsburgh QB Ben Roethlisberger – and you can see why general managers were willing to feed their children raw sewage for a chance just to meet with Peyton and inquire if he’d do them the honor of accepting a minimum of $18 million a season from them.

Ultimately, Peyton picked the Denver Broncos, in large part because the franchise is run by John Elway, another iconic prototypical quarterback, so they’ll have plenty to talk about (“You’re a tall white guy who likes to remain in the pocket? Me too!”). With the announcement of the signing, the odds of the Broncos winning the Super Bowl went from 75-1 to 8-1. And more eyes are on the Broncos than any time since…well…three months ago.

In one of the stupider bits of analysis I’ve ever heard, radio host Mike Francesca helpfully pointed out that Peyton Manning would be profitable for the Broncos, for now the networks will want to show them on television. Which is nice, because no one had any interest in them last season when their quarterback was frickin’ Tim Tebow, who was only the most covered person on the entire planet.

Tebow has many faults as a quarterback: “failed to draw TV viewers” is not one of them.

But Denver isn’t worried about popularity contests.

Nor are they worried about money (Tebow will earn about a seventh of Peyton’s guaranteed salary this season).

Nor are they worried about winning the division (which Tebow did last year) or winning a playoff game (ditto).

Nor are they worried about the long-term, since Peyton’s at an age when NFL players are typically “retired” or “long-retired” or “Did I used to play football? How young I was then!”, depending on their position.

For fans will not care, provided Peyton does just one thing: win a Super Bowl immediately.

And while facing greater expectations than any athlete who doesn’t refer to himself as King James, in the back of Peyton’s mind has to be the thought, “I wonder if…when a 300-pound linebacker with a running start totally blindsides you…it still hurts. Because it would be great if it didn’t.”

Peyton hasn’t been violently driven into the turf for well over a year now, since all the neck surgeries forced him to miss an entire season. And while he certainly remembers the feeling, the memory is growing increasingly distant. Even now, his workouts seem devoid of the violence of the NFL (that leaked cellphone video of him tossing around the pigskin was noticeably free of gargantuan men “accidentally” taking shots at his knees). With his teammates understandably wary of injuring their aging star’s oft-repaired neck, there will be a very real chance that Peyton will not experience the pain of playing pro football until the first game of the new season.

Upon doing so, he may muse, I am in my mid-30s with a wife, children, and more money than I can ever spend; while I still enjoy throwing a football, the being-trampled-by-giants aspect has ceased to amuse me.

I shall hit the showers.

Or, as I observed in this article, he may simply poop himself.

Frankly, that’s what most of us would do. Faced with a pro blitz, I would (in no particular order) cry, scream, lose consciousness, beg for mercy while crying and screaming, pray to assorted deities, cease to control my bodily functions, and demand very, very powerful pain medications.

I think it’s reasonable to wonder if Peyton has become, through no fault of his own, detached from the physical realities of the game. And yes, I know he exercises constantly and the rehab is deeply grueling. I have no doubts these activities would leave me exhausted, sore, and covered in regurgitated Wheaties from repeatedly vomiting on myself.

But they would not kill me.

Clay Matthews Jr. might.

So Peyton faces an unspeakable amount of pressure – traditionally that’s not something he enjoys, as even the season he won his lone Super Bowl title he played miserably in the playoffs, throwing for just three touchdowns and a shocking seven interceptions in four games – and I think he’s genuinely uncertain how his body will handle it all, meaning John Elway may look back on the Tebow era with unexpected fondness.

Unless of course it does indeed no longer hurt when a 300-pound linebacker with a running start totally blindsides you, in which case it’s going to be a magical, poop-free season.

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