WHEN WE LAST SAW PEYTON MANNING in a football game he was getting his keister ignominiously clobbered by a ruthless band of renegades from The Emerald City. No, not the capital city of the fictional Land of Oz – this was Seattle. But it might as well have been Oz, given that Manning played like a munchkin with a helium-tinged voice and was taken on a terrifying ride not unlike the one Toto got from the flying monkeys ...

It started on the game’s first offensive snap, when Manning and Denver Broncos centre Manny Ramirez got their communication wires crossed, and Ramirez zinged the ball right past the earhole of Manning’s helmet. The ball ricocheted into the end zone and resulted in a safety.

And implausibly, unbelievably, it got even worse from there. The Seahawks’ defensive line overpowered Manning’s bodyguards, rag-dolled him, intercepted two passes, forced four fumbles and put a deer-in-the-headlights look on the usually unflappable QB’s face as the Broncos stumbled to a 43-8 defeat in Super Bowl XLVIII.

So where exactly is Peyton’s Place? The loss dropped Manning’s postseason win-loss record to 11-12. Even though his team has been favoured in all three Super Bowls in which he’s appeared, he’s won just one.

The offseason that followed wasn’t kind to Manning, either. Former Steelers QB Terry Bradshaw, who won all four of his appearances in the big game, had a little fun at Manning’s expense. “Peyton Manning, considered the best quarterback to play the game today – nobody would argue with that,” Bradshaw said during his one-man show, America’s Favorite Dumb Blonde. And then the zinger: “If you like winning good during the season and losing Super Bowls, that’s your guy.” Bradshaw later refused to apologise, saying he was just joking and pointing out that Jay Leno never apologised for any of his jokes. Besides, he said, Manning would probably think it was funny.

Hmm, maybe not. Manning is known for his own ruthless, laser focus. During mini-camp in June, he refused to answer questions about the green football he and wide receiver Demaryius Thomas were seen toting around the facility (supposedly a reminder to not fumble it away).

“Like I said, that’s official Denver Broncos offensive business, right?” he said. “It’s kind of an A and B conversation, and you can C your way out of it.”

Asked if he planned to wear his AFC Championship ring, he shot back, “Probably not.”

Next question: how will Manning and the Broncos respond to the debacle? It’s just one of the many compelling storylines for the 2014-15 season. How will it all play out? Read on ...

LORD OF THE RINGS

Even if Jesse Williams doesn’t materialise as a force in the NFL, the Seahawks might want to keep him around just for good luck. Tha Monstar, as the former Queensland Under 19s rugby star has been called, is on a ridiculous roll. It started when he won national championships in his only two seasons at the University of Alabama. Concerns over the stability of his knee dropped him into the fifth round of the 2013 NFL Draft, but the potent Seahawks claimed him, sparing him from the impotent Jacksonville Jags or the arctic wasteland of Buffalo.

Williams made the roster, and although he underwent knee surgery and was placed on the injured reserve list during preseason and never played another snap, he still received a Super Bowl ring after the Seahawks clocked the Broncos – making him the only Aussie ever to earn one. Minutes after the Seahawks received their rings – each of which contains 12 gemstones and 183 diamonds – he posted a photo on Twitter of all three championship rocks on his hand. It created quite a stir, but nothing like the social media storm that erupted when he showed up at the White House in a purple floral suit created by Brisbane designer Wil Valor. It was his third trip to visit President Obama, so maybe he was just trying to keep it fresh. (When he caught up with ’Bama there in 2012, he wore a white jacket with sleeves that exposed half of his tattoo-adorned forearms.)

The mission now? Well, another White House gig would be sweet, but he’s working hard to become more than just an ink-stained novelty. Tha Monstar has rehabbed his bung knee – including returning to Australia for Orthokine injections that aren’t approved by the US Food and Drug Administration – and says it hasn’t felt this good since his junior college days at Arizona Western in 2010. He’s calling this season “a welcome-back party for my legs”.

POPEYE POWER

Josh Gordon must be the reincarnation of Ricky Williams, the quirky former Heisman Trophy winner who preferred smoking pot to being a star football player. After serving a drug-related two-game suspension at the beginning of last season, Gordon emerged into stardom for the Cleveland Browns by becoming the first player ever to have back-to-back 200-yard receiving games, leading the NFL with 1,646 yards and being selected to the Pro Bowl.

The glory was short-lived. ESPN reported on May 9 that Williams had failed a drug test, this time for marijuana, and faced a one-year suspension from the NFL. Sixteen days later he was ticketed in Ohio for driving his Mercedes 120km/h in a 100km zone; his passenger was issued a citation for possession of marijuana for an amount under 200g after claiming it was his and not Gordon’s. Then, on July 5, Gordon was arrested around 3am in Raleigh, North Carolina and charged with driving while impaired.

The Browns had put their trust in him by passing on highly acclaimed Clemson wide receiver Sammy Watkins with the fourth pick in the draft. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Gordon had been dismissed from the team at Baylor University after being suspended twice for marijuana use. He transferred to Utah, but never saw the field because he failed another drug test.

What now? Well, the NFL will decide. But it appears Gordon might be making his own decision. Kind of like Ricky Williams.

Williams, the fifth pick in the 1999 draft, was traded from the New Orleans Saints to the Miami Dolphins in 2002 and announced his decision to retire in 2004 amid rumours he’d failed his third drug test. He headed west, to the California College of Ayurveda, to study the ancient Indian system of holistic medicine. He returned to the Dolphins in 2005, but was suspended less than a year later for a fourth NFL drugs violation.

After playing a year in the Canadian Football League, he was reinstated by the NFL, but had four largely nondescript years before retiring after the 2011 season.

Williams once described his marijuana use this way: “I don’t agree that it was an Achilles’ heel. I kind of think it was more like spinach for Popeye.”

Except that the NFL sort’ve frowns upon that kind of spinach ...

RUN, RAY, RUN

Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was with a group of about eight people on the night of February 14 at Royal Jelly Burlesque Nightclub inside Revel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. “They were having a great time – no issues,” said Scott Russo, director of operations for the club. “[Rice] was very nice to our staff.” But something went horribly wrong inside an elevator at around 2:50am.

Video surveillance shows Rice – the face of Baltimore’s anti-bullying program – trying to lift and move his seemingly unconscious fiancee, Janay Palmer, out of the elevator. Outside the lift, he drops her face down on the floor. A man – presumably a hotel security officer – approaches Rice, who then pushes her legs away from the elevator door. Rice then picks her up and puts her on her knees, and she falls forward. As the man continues to talk to Rice, Rice walks away.

Both Rice and Palmer were charged with simple assault by the Atlantic City Police Department. The simple assault complaint against Palmer was administratively dismissed after the Atlantic County prosecutor’s office reviewed the case, but Rice was indicted by an Atlantic County grand jury for one count of aggravated assault, with police supposedly having “video evidence of the blow” from a camera inside the elevator. Rice pleaded not guilty and was later approved for a pre-trial inter-vention program that will keep him out of jail.

At a press conference, Rice spat out a lot of self-pity, but never apologised to Palmer. Instead, it was Palmer who apologised. Amazingly, Rice is going to have to sit out just TWO GAMES and  surrender an additional game cheque for “conduct detrimental to the NFL in violation of the league's Personal Conduct Policy”, a punishment handed out by Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has nearly unlimited power to fine and suspend players for off-the-field conduct. Rice's fiancee gave him the benefit of the doubt: she married him the day after he was indicted ...

HAVE A HEART

The NFL is a cutthroat world where acts of kindness are not the norm. Jimmy Johnson once cut fifth-year Dallas Cowboys linebacker John Roper on the spot for falling asleep in a team meeting. When Nick Saban was coach of the Dolphins, he saw offensive lineman Jeno James on the floor, convulsing from seizures ... and casually stepped right over him on his way to his office.

The Seahawks could’ve perpetuated the league’s cold-hearted image in the case of Garrett Scott, but they turned callousness on its head and extended uncommon kindness in a story that reached far beyond the realm of sport. The Seahawks drafted Scott, an offensive lineman from Marshall University, in the sixth round with the 199th overall pick. But when they brought him in for a physical before rookie mini-camp, they discovered he had a rare heart condition. His football career was over.

They could have cut him right then and there. Instead, they signed him to a contract, then waived him. When he cleared waivers, he joined their Injured Reserve list, meaning he’s technically a member of the team even though he won’t play. Oh, and he’ll receive a signing bonus of $101,672 along with a salary of $303,000.

Head coach Pete Carroll has worked tirelessly to establish a family atmosphere within the organisation. Now Scott is part of that family, even though an accountant would view him only as a liability on the balance sheet. “We think highly of Garrett as a person and as a football player,” Seahawks GM John Schneider said. “The team is committed to supporting Garrett in the months to come and will continue to help him determine his next steps.”

Scott’s reaction? He said he was “blessed”. His tweet: There are some things we don’t understand, but God knows exactly what he’s doing. #Seahawks #Blessed

It’s a shame things didn’t work out in the football realm, because Scott and the Seahawks seem to be made for each other.

NO, YOU’RE FIRED!

The Buffalo Bills are for sale. Donald Trump apparently is the only person in America who thinks it’s a good idea that he tries to buy them. We say “tries” because even a filthy-rich blowhard worth $3.9 billion – according to Forbes – doesn’t just rubber-stamp himself into the NFL fraternity of owners. Even if Trump survives the vetting process and is chosen from the list of bidders, he still has to be approved by 75 per cent of the NFL’s owners. He has about as good a chance of that as his brother, narcissistic right-wing radio loudmouth Rush Limbaugh, would have had if his interest in the St Louis Rams had gone any further in 2009.

NFL owners – if we ignore Jerry Jones for just a second – are a rather dignified bunch. The most successful ones rarely find themselves in the headlines. They subscribe to a management structure in which they hire sharp, forward-thinking people and then bow gracefully out of the way, allowing them to do what they were hired to do.

Can you imagine Trump doing that? He’d name the stadium – and probably the team – after himself, carve a contrived golf course out of the parking lot (and name that after himself, too), hire Hooters girls to provide security and challenge Goodell to a UFC bout at midfield before the first game.

And we haven’t even broached the topic of racism. We haven’t discussed the 1973 Justice Department lawsuit against him for allegedly discriminating against potential black renters, his full-page newspaper ads in 1989 calling for the death penalty for black teenage suspects who were later exonerated in the rape of a white female jogger, his comment that “laziness is a trait in blacks” or his insistence that President Obama couldn’t have gained admission to Harvard Law School based on his grades.

You think the NFL wants an NBA-style Donald Sterling mess?

So let’s nip this thing in the bud right now: Donald Trump, you’re fired!

GETTING CHIPPY

Ed Hochuli is the embodiment of NFL officialdom. In addition to being one of the league’s best officials and making two appearances on a Super Bowl crew, he’s a model-esque dude who has massive biceps sculpted from two hours a day in the gym – biceps that have prompted the nickname “Hochules”.

He’s so popular, there’s a fake Twitter account honouring him (@HochulisGuns), along with a tribute video on YouTube: I Want To Be Ed Hochuli.

But let’s be reasonable here: you don’t need massive biceps to be an effective official in the NFL. You just need good judgment, an understanding of the rules, and a rock-solid facade in the face of intimidating sideline antics from irate, invective-spewing coaches.

Which is why it shouldn’t be surprising that two women are being groomed to join Hochuli and his brethren: Sarah Thomas and Maia Chaka, who are in the final stage of the development program. They are among 21 officials who refereed a preseason game this year and will be eligible for regular-season NFL games. Shannon Eastin was a replacement referee during the 2012 lockout, but Thomas and Chaka would be the first full-time female referees hired by the league.

“The long-term goal is to develop a pipeline of female officials,” NFL vice-president of officiating Dean Blandino said. “Diversity is very important.”

Chaka is approaching it without fanfare. She’s not trumpeting femininity or some headline-grabbing cause. She just wants to be one of 119 officials on the NFL’s 17 game-day crews next season. “As with any job that you take on, you want to do it the best you can and you always want to make it to the highest possible level,” she said.

Not everybody is breathlessly lauding the NFL. Melissa Jacobs, founder and managing editor of TheFootballGirl.com, claims the NFL trotted out Thomas and Blandino on a superficial national tour of media outlets last year, with the message being that she would be a permanent official this season — not some fringe candidate still trying to prove herself. She says we’ve been “hearing the Sarah Thomas story for five years”. She claims we’ve been a “little duped”.

“I thought we were getting a chocolate chip cookie,” she wrote, “and instead we got oatmeal raisin. Fine, better than no cookie, but very second-tier.”

We’re not sure of the legitimacy of her metaphor. You mean oatmeal and chocolate-chip cookies are on different tiers? Who knew?

MEAN TWEETS

Everybody’s a critic. President Obama has drawn the wrath of people who are outraged that he occasionally plays a round of golf, because, well, he should be tethered to the world 24/7 with no chance to blow off some steam, right?

Tony Romo can empathise with the Prez. For many years, Romo was criticised for his golf hobby. How dare he break out his Callaway Big Bertha Alpha when the last four Dallas Cowboys seasons have ended infamously short of the playoffs?

Well, the critics have won. Sort of. Romo admitted in July that hasn’t played golf since early in 2013. But it has very little to do with brain-dead Romophobic cretins and almost everything to do with his back. Romo had a cyst removed from his back in April 2013 and then had a herniated lumbar disk repaired in December. That prevented him from full participation in offseason workouts, so he certainly wasn’t going to risk torquing his spine into another surgery.

“You’ve got to get yourself healthy, then figure out where you’re at and go from there for everything,” Romo said. “It’s not just golf. It’s a way you live life.” And, by the way, Romo and his team-mates do hear the critics. Romo, who famously made a Starter apparel commercial in 2012 that addressed the barbs, joined teammates Dez Bryant, Brandon Weeden and Jason Witten in July to film a video, Mean Tweets, a takeoff of the popular Jimmy Kimmel Live segment. The Cowboys players read tweets from fans and gave their response. Bryant’s reaction was the most priceless: “People are assholes.”

HUNTERESQUE

Admit it. A part of you wants to be like Johnny Manziel. You don’t necessarily want to be the guy who unwisely signed hundreds of autographs and nearly forced the NCAA hounds to bring the hammer down on Texas A&M, but you wouldn’t mind being the guy who was drafted in the first round by the Browns and then went on a nationwide tour in which he pretty much sampled, well, everything decadent in the nation.

Where do we begin? With Memorial Day weekend in Las Vegas and a pool party with New England Patriots star tight end Rob Gronkowski and a dozen scantily clad ladies, followed by a front-row seat for a UFC fight? Or that June night at the X Games in Austin, Texas, and a ride on an inflatable swan, with a champagne bottle in-fist? Some quality time with Justin Bieber’s ex-girlfriend in Houston? Then back to Vegas for Fourth of July partying that produced a bathroom photo of him tightly rolling up a US dollar bill?

The guy gets around. He has a certain joie de vivre that is now bordering on Hunter S. Thompson maniacal and, as far as the Browns are concerned, hazardous to his career and maybe even his freedom. They reportedly have commanded him to “tone it down”. Lots of luck with that, guys. You knew what you were getting …