Manning out for Week 1; Favre's consecutive game streak safe for another day

Michael Conroy - AP

Peyton Manning has officially been ruled out of the Indianapolis Colts' opening game against the Houston Texans, ending his streak of 208 consecutive starts, 227 if including the postseason. Manning's mark, while impressive, falls well short of Brett Favre's record of 297 straight games, and considering the almost psychopathic devotion to the game that Favre had, it's hard to imagine a quarterback ever again lasting at least 18 years in the league without missing a single start.

With Manning out of the way, Ronde Barber is now the league's leading ironman, having played in 183 straight games. The longest active games streak for a quarterback stays in the Manning family, since his brother has played in 103 straight games. Mike Sando of ESPN points out that if Eli wanted to break Favre's record, he'd have to play until the third game of the 2023 season, at which point he would be 42 years old.

It begs to question what Favre is thinking right now. Sure, there's a sigh of relief now that his record is safe and secure, but look at all the hoops he went through to push his streak into the stratosphere last year. He played through a myriad of injuries on a lousy team at age 41. Part of that had to have been to distance himself from Peyton Manning, and I know that's speculation on my part, but that streak was one big vanity project on Favre's part -- to the point that it stopped being commendable. He may have still played last year without the incentive of keeping the streak alive, but now knowing that Manning was still years away from even threatening his streak, Favre has one more reason to conclude that last year's comeback was an utter waste of time.