In 2008, the Indianapolis Colts chose wide receiver Pierre Garcon in the sixth round of the NFL draft.

Garcon had to miss the Colts' first minicamp because of an NFL rule that prohibits rookies from attending Organized Team Activities — the NFL's own lofty term — until that year's graduation at the rookies' college.

Understand that the Colts already had all-pro receivers Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne, and a fine No. 3 guy in Anthony Gonzalez.

Understand that a sixth-round pick, especially one from tiny, Division III Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio, is generally a footnote, no safe bet to make a team, much less contribute anytime soon.

No matter. Garcon couldn't go to minicamp, so Peyton Manning took minicamp to Garcon.

Manning drove the 275 miles from Indy to Alliance, so Garcon could run routes and Manning could throw him footballs, and the two could watch video together, and the foundation of the passer-catcher relationship could be laid.

Garcon made the team, of course. He had only four receptions as a rookie. But then Harrison went unsigned and Gonzalez sustained a career-ending injury and defenses started keying on Wayne and there was Garcon, in last month's AFC championship game, grabbing 11 of Manning's passes for 151 yards as the Colts earned their Super Bowl berth.

Don't wonder if any other quarterback would have made that Indy-to-Alliance trip, because the answer is don't be silly. Wouldn't even have occurred to anybody else.

This is not to suggest that Manning is a nice guy or warm teammate. He is his sport's Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, so focused, so obsessed, so competitive that, in almost any other context, his sanity would be called into question.

The last time the Colts were in the Super Bowl, after the 2006 season, he famously angered the Colts by banning families from the team hotel.

"I don't want any crying kids next to me while I'm trying to study," he said.

What Manning is, is the smartest, most committed guy in the room, even if the room is the entire history of America's favorite sport.

I could glaze your eyes over with statistics, but it's easier to just say this: Only injury will stop Manning from eventually having every quarterbacking record that matters.

If today goes as I suspect it will (this isn't a prediction column, but what the hey: Colts 48, Saints 27) we'll be hearing often, in the coming days, that Manning is the best QB ever.

Steady, everyone. It is not at all clear that Manning could have played the game Unitas or Montana or Elway played better than they did. Let's not go there, at least not yet.

Let's say this: Manning plays the game of his time better than anyone ever has.

And this: No football player has ever meant more to an NFL team than Archie's son, the football nerd.

And his time is here.

That doesn't just mean that today's Super Bowl arrives at the point where Manning's talent, motivation and experience intersect at the highest point they ever have or will, although that's part of it.

It means the current version of pro football is made for him. The limits under which receivers and passers can be physically engaged have gotten as baroque as sexual-harassment law.

It is thus more true than ever that the passing game, executed well enough, can't be stopped.

It's not about guts and glory any more. It's about the reality that every defensive scheme, blitz or press or cover-2 or whatever, gives the quarterback something.

If he finds it, yards pile up and chains move and points add up, steadily, inexorably. Resistance is all but futile.

The essential Manning moment is when he sees a sack coming and just quietly lays down, conceding.

You can have that one, he's saying. No biggie. I can afford to be patient.

Not exactly macho.

The NFL has become a video game. Manning is the geeky kid who, by immersing himself so deeply for so long, has solved levels even the game designers didn't know were there.

It's probably coincidental that the NFL has become a techie thing in the techie times we live in.

But it's an interesting coincidence. You probably don't know this, because the sports media for some reason cover bad TV ratings better than good ones, but the Nielsens for the NFL, and indeed for sports generally, are way up.

The economy may have something to do with that, but so do HDTVs and Twitter and Facebook and blogs and perhaps even DVR fatigue.

Rich Hofmann put this perfectly in the Philadelphia Daily News the other day:

"Sports-on-TV falls into a kind of magic sweet spot, a place where the attraction has a short shelf life (you have to watch it now) and a high participation value (you have a chance to talk nonsense with your friends about it in real time). You don't get that with 'The Price Is Right,' or with the multiflavored versions of 'Law and Order' or 'CSI: Everywhere.' "

Which is why the Super Bowl is no longer fundamentally a party. It's an interactive experience.

I'll be live-blogging (at LancasterOnline.com) this evening, watching a gorgeous image in a high-def screen while typing and touch-screening and hanging out in Peyton Manning's world.

It's where, in 2010, we play together.