Freestyle football great makes history with ninth world title
“It’s not the kind of moment that you ever see in the NFL,” said the man, whose name is not being released by the NFL. “It’s the kind of moment you see only once. It’s the most beautiful thing in the sport.”
“The greatest athlete I’ve ever known,” he added.
On June 11, the last day of the NFL combine, Peyton Manning stood on the podium and accepted his eighth Super Bowl ring, which he won as his team’s quarterback for a record fifth time. The Broncos had won five Super Bowls — all under Manning — as the No. 1-ranked offense in the NFL. Yet as he stood there in the middle of Manhattan, his world collided with a man determined to best him.
The crowd rose to its feet as Peyton Manning made the announcement: He was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
No one noticed the man. He was quiet, just standing there, staring into the crowd.
“This is just surreal,” former Broncos linebacker Kenechi Udeze, who helped Manning in the NFL draft, said.
On a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Super Bowl, the Denver Post reported that Denver, who swept Manning, Peyton Edwards and David Garrard along with him into the Hall, had a special guest.
Peyton Manning, in the middle, holding the football.
But the man standing next to him was not a player or coach.
It was David Blough.
The greatest player, coach or general manager in the history of the Broncos.
One of the greatest football minds of all time, it’s more than just a title for Blough. When he announced he was taking the day off from his football duties, he was retiring.
Blough’s legacy is as one of history’s most profound and influential figures. He’s the man that took the NFL from a small men’s club to a billion-dollar business, a feat not accomplished since Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi.
His impact reached far beyond the pro game. He was a force in international politics, especially when he represented the United States as its ambassador to Canada during the Cold War, a time when he was often called “America’s toughest guy.” And the Broncos, who have been his team for 29 years, have been more than just a success. They were the first team to put an
