COLTS

Aaron Rodgers explains 'brilliance' of Peyton's 'Omaha' call

Jim Ayello
Jim Ayello
Quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers (right) of the Green Bay Packers and Peyton Manning (left) of the Denver Broncos talk while surrounded by media after the Broncos' 29-10 win at Sports Authority Field at Mile High on Nov. 1, 2015 in Denver, Colorado.

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers recently explained the "beauty and the brilliance" of Peyton Manning's famous "Omaha" call while a guest on Bill Simmons' HBO show "Any Given Wednesday."

On the show, Simmons asked Rodgers which quarterbacks he likes to watch and emulate. Rodgers immediately brings up Manning before explaining what made his "Omaha" call so effective.

I like watching Peyton. Peyton I think did a lot for the pre-snap for everybody.

(The "Omaha" call) was important. That's really interesting. The root of that is a timing mechanism where his offense can get off at the same time. And then the beauty and the brilliance of it is that it goes from that, that word, to you saw numerous times he would change it. He would have a code word that would mean it wasn’t coming on the "Omaha." It wasn’t "Omaha, Omaha, set hut." That was a dummy.

He doesn't take the chances that we do in Green Bay when we draw somebody offsides, but his ability to manipulate that — their thing was if a guy jumped offsides, the offensive lineman would move an initiate contact or just move to where you get the neutral zone infraction, where we want to snap it and take a shot down the field.

Rodgers goes on to talk about other aspects of Manning's game that he admires, highlighting above all, the simplicity of his greatness.

The thing I love about Peyton, for years, especially in Indy, is they would stay in a 2-by-2 set in any personnel group. Marvin (Harrison) would play one side, and Reggie (Wayne) would play the other side, and they'd have the two tight ends or the third receiver in the slot and be able to run their entire offense out of that and not have motion or dilute it down by trying to be an offensive guru and create some incredible play. It was just, "Our offense in 2-by-2 is going to be better than you can do. We're going to go at a tempo where you just can't match it. ... The simplest stuff is often the stuff that works best, and I always appreciated that about Peyton.