PRO FOOTBALL  | BRONCOS 23, STEELERS 16 

Peyton Manning, the Broncos’ Flickering Star, Glows Just in Time

By 
Denver’s Peyton Manning in the first quarter against Pittsburgh on Sunday. Doug Pensinger/Getty Images 
DENVER — It was getting late Sunday, the winds were swirling, and Peyton Manning grabbed his helmet from the bench, lunged twice from side to side and crept closer to the sideline. The Denver Broncos trailed by a point, and they had two, maybe three possessions remaining.
The later it gets in Manning’s career, the fewer moments such as this exist — the chance to summon the one pass, the one read, the one play that extends the joy ride. He does not like thinking about the end, but he has. He admitted as much last week.
After an uneven first three quarters, after incompletions and drops and hollow possessions, Manning imparted a gift that sustained the Broncos for another game. Evading a Pittsburgh blitz, he delivered his best throw of the day, a tight spiral that prolonged Denver’s lone touchdown drive, a fourth-quarter sledgehammer that propelled the Broncos to a 23-16 victory over the Steelers and a berth in the A.F.C. championship game.
Had C. J. Anderson not gone on to score on a 1-yard run with three minutes left, this would have been the most cutting playoff defeat of Manning’s tenure in Denver, surpassing the Super Bowl debacle two years ago against the Seattle Seahawks.
C. J. Anderson reached across the goal line for a 1-yard touchdown run that gave the Broncos a fourth-quarter lead. Denver added a 2-point conversion that made the score 20-13.Doug Pensinger/Getty Images 
Fans would have raged, mourning how Manning and the league’s best defense had failed to topple Pittsburgh, a team playing without its best receiver (Antonio Brown, who had a concussion) and running back (DeAngelo Williams, who had a foot injury), and with its quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, hampered by a severe injury to his throwing shoulder.
Denver survived to host the New England Patriots next Sunday for a berth in the Super Bowl in what will be the 17th installment of Manning’s rivalry with Tom Brady. Though Manning has won only five of their previous matchups, he has a 2-1 advantage in championship games. Manning deferred comment on New England and Brady until Wednesday, saying he wanted to enjoy this victory, but some of his teammates did not mind.
“I have a serious hate for the Patriots,” defensive end Derek Wolfe said. “I’m going to be really amped up for that one.”
Told of Wolfe’s comments, safety T. J. Ward said: “I can echo that. I don’t like them too much. They don’t like us, so that’ll be a perfect A.F.C. championship game.”
Martavis Bryant, being tackled by T. J. Ward, finished with nine catches for 154 yards for the Steelers, the A.F.C.’s sixth seed. Doug Pensinger/Getty Images 
On Sunday, imperfection prevailed at Sports Authority Field. There were blown coverages and drive-killing penalties and special-teams gaffes — like the one that could have doomed the Steelers. Two minutes after Pittsburgh had recovered its own muffed punt in its end zone, fortune swung toward the Broncos, who trailed by 13-12.
On the sideline and in the huddle, their defensive players had been pleading for a turnover, and here it came, Bradley Roby dislodging the ball from Fitzgerald Toussaint, allowing Denver to take over at its 35-yard line with 9 minutes 52 seconds left.
On the ensuing 13-play drive, Manning handed off again and again to Anderson and Ronnie Hillman, 10 times in all, but faced a third-and-12 at the Denver 33. The thing about being a complementary quarterback stuck in a Hall of Famer’s body is that sometimes the passes that wobble turn straight and true again, like an arrow fired by an archer.
The reserve receiver Bennie Fowler, who in the second quarter had dropped consecutive passes, ran a post route, and Manning whipped a throw that sneaked past cornerback Brandon Boykin for a 31-yard completion.
Manning, handing off to Ronnie Hillman, finished with 222 passing yards for Denver, the No. 1 seed in the A.F.C. Dustin Bradford/Getty Images 
If the Steelers had come out in man-to-man coverage, Fowler said, he doubted that Manning would have looked toward him. But once Pittsburgh deployed a zone, leaving space in the middle of the field, he knew he was Manning’s primary option.
“I think the one thing that I’ve always believed in was that if you have missed throws and you have some dropped passes, you just keep firing,” Manning said. “Bennie, there was no doubt that I was going to keep throwing to him if the read took me there.”
Manning threw one more pass on the drive, a 7-yarder to Emmanuel Sanders for a first down. The next five plays were runs, which made sense given the transformation of Denver’s offense. Anderson’s 1-yard touchdown run and a 2-point conversion put Denver ahead by 20-13.
There is ever more reliance on Anderson and Hillman and less dependence on Manning, who missed six games with a partly torn plantar fascia in his left foot before replacing an ineffective Brock Osweiler in the third quarter of the season finale three weeks ago, a comeback that reasserted him as the starter. Manning finished 21 of 37 for 222 yards on Sunday, and for the first time all season in a game he started, he did not throw an interception.

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For perhaps the first time this season, Manning, who will turn 40 in March, was the healthier quarterback. However hurt Roethlisberger was, Denver never expected him to sit. He needed the full week to recuperate from a hit by Cincinnati linebacker Vontaze Burfict that pulverized his right shoulder, separating it.
Roethlisberger — who this season alone has sprained a foot and a knee ligament and sustained a concussion — said last week that he did not know if he had played through a worse injury. He did not throw until Friday’s practice.
On the Steelers’ first offensive play Sunday, he tossed the ball 50 yards. The pass was incomplete, but the result mattered less than the objective.
Roethlisberger deterred the Broncos from creeping up too far, giving him opportunities to complete shorter passes. The throws that he would normally have made to Brown went instead to Sammie Coates and Markus Wheaton and, especially, Martavis Bryant, whose 40-yard reverse set up the only touchdown of the first half. Roethlisberger finished 24 of 37 for 339 yards.
The Broncos had vowed that these playoffs would be different, that never again would they treat a postseason game with complacency, as they did last year, when they prepared for Indianapolis by focusing on a game with New England that never came.
All week, Manning’s teammates praised his concentration, his attention to detail, how his passes whipped through biting winds at practice. On Sunday, sometimes they did, sometimes they did not, and that is how it goes, has gone, for Manning.
It matters little that he is not as good as before. More relevant is whether Denver can win with him. It happened Sunday. Once more, and the Broncos are in the Super Bowl.
Correction: January 17, 2016 
An earlier version of this article misstated Peyton Manning’s age. He will turn 40 in March, not 39.
A version of this article appears in print on January 18, 2016, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: Denver’s Flickering Star Glows Just in Time. Order Reprints|  Today's Paper|Subscribe