Peyton Manning gets to face his biggest nemesis for one more shot at glory. Get ready for Brady-Manning XVII.

The NFL’s only five-time MVP earned one more and possibly final game against his rival by leading the Denver Broncos to a come-from-behind 23-16 win over Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers on a blustery Sunday.

That set up an AFC championship game next weekend in Denver against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.

Just before kickoff Sunday in Denver, a strong wind blew over the Rocky Mountains, wreaking havoc on passes and kicks alike, although Broncos’ Brandon McManus tied an NFL playoff record by converting all five of his field-goal attempts and Chris Boswell of the Steelers made all three of his.

Manning’s teammates dropped seven passes but also came through in crunch time. Denver is 10-3 in games decided by seven points or fewer, and Manning said being battle-tested helped them on this blustery night

With Denver down 13-12 with less than 10 minutes left, cornerback Bradley Roby, burned time and again, punched the ball from Fitzgerald Toussaint’s arms and teammate DeMarcus Ware recovered at the Denver 35-yard line.

“Perfect timing,” Roby said.

Toussaint, who scored his first career TD in the first half, took it hard and blamed himself.

“This is not all on him by any means,” Roethlisberger said. “It’s on all of us.”

After Toussaint’s fumble, Manning went to work, driving Denver to its only touchdown, a 1-yard run by C.J. Anderson, followed by Demaryius Thomas’ catch on the 2-pointer that put Denver ahead 20-13 with three minutes left.

That was Manning’s 55th game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime, extending one of the dozen NFL records he owns.

Carolina Panthers Hold Off Seattle’s Comeback

Four games into his playoff career, Cam Newton recognizes the key element to success. He calls it “Big Mo,” and there couldn’t have been a better example than Carolina’s 31-24 victory over Seattle on Sunday in Charlotte, N.C.

Emphatically backing up their superb regular season with one of the most dominating halves in football history, the Panthers then hung on in the face of a furious Seahawks rally before surviving.

“The playoffs bring out more than any other time the impact of ‘Big Mo,'” Newton said after Carolina (16-1) moved into NFC title game, which they will host next Sunday against Arizona (13-3). “Momentum.

“We can’t wait for no one to make plays for us.”

The Panthers, winners of 12 straight at home, made all the right plays in building a 31-0 lead, then were dominated by the two-time defending NFC champs in the second half. So if Carolina wins its first NFL championship, it can credit the lesson learned from the Seahawks (11-7).

“We have to find a way to complete a full game of football,” the All-Pro quarterback added. “We have been known to take our foot off the throttle and we have to find that killer instinct.”

Newton noted how players, coaches and even the fans were feeling the pressure in the final 30 minutes as Seattle staged a relentless comeback.

This will be the Panthers’ fourth trip to the NFC championship game, and their first time as host.

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An independent commission formed by the World Anti-Doping Agency released the second part of its damning report Thursday, detailing illicit state-sanctioned doping by track and field athletes, and corruption among top international officials.

While the first part of the report, released in November, focused mainly on wrongdoing by the Russian athletics federation (ARAF) and the Russian anti-doping agency (RUSADA), Thursday’s report centers on the corruption of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which was found to have contributed to the corruption that allowed athletes with dirty blood tests to continue competing.

The report says that former president of the IAAF Lamine Diack “was responsible for organizing and enabling the conspiracy and corruption that took place in the IAAF.”

As the Two-Way previously reported, the institutions failed completely; athletes who had doped were even allowed to compete in the 2012 Olympic Games. The report found that Diack knew of extorting athletes to hide abnormal blood tests.

“He sanctioned and appears to have had personal knowledge of the fraud and the extortion of athletes carried out by the actions of the informal illegitimate governance structure he put in place,” the report says.

But it also says that the illegal activity went beyond Diack.

“The corruption was embedded in the organization. It cannot be ignored or dismissed as attributable to the odd renegade acting on its own,” the report said.

It went on to assert that “at least some of the members of the IAAF Council could not have been unaware of the extent of doping in Athletics and the non-enforcement of applicable anti-doping rules.”

In the wake of WADA’s first report, the IAAF ethics committee handed down three lifetime bans last week (including to the former president of Russia’s athletic federation) and one five-year ban to the former head of the IAAF’s anti-doping unit.

At the time, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said he thought the IAAF announced the bans to help its own image and distract from the looming publication of the second part of WADA’s report, according to Reuters.

Now that the second installment of the report has been published, Mutko said he “supported all the outcomes” of the investigation and understood Russia’s share of the responsibility for the doping scandal, the news service said, citing the Tass news agency.

With the IAAF now in the spotlight, it will be up to the current president, Sebastian Coe of Britain, to take the next steps.

Dick Pound, a former WADA president said Coe was the right person to lead the organization, according to the Associated Press.

“There’s [an] enormous amount of reputational recovery that has to occur here and I can’t … think of anyone better than Lord Coe to lead that. All our fingers are crossed in that respect.”

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Hall of Fame center fielder Willie Mays was once quoted as saying, “I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.”

But when it came to life off the field, the legendary player credits his former teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Monte Irvin with being his teacher. Irvin died Monday at his home in Houston at the age of 96. Mays, now 84, spoke to NPR’s Kelly McEvers about the man he described as a father figure.

“He taught me a lot things about life,” Mays said. “I already knew how to play the game, but sometimes you need a little more. You need to know how to treat people. You need to know how when you hit a home run, you run around the bases — you don’t stop and show anybody up. Thinking was more important to him than just playing the game.”

For much of his career, Irvin played in the Negro Leagues with the Newark Eagles. When he finally reached Major League Baseball in 1949, two years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, he was already 30 years old. Still, his skill was undeniable.

“He had what I call a very good arm, ran very good, good hitter and most of all thinking,” Mays said. “He was a good thinker in the outfield and that sometimes is overlooked.”

When Mays entered MLB in 1951, he joined Irvin on the New York Giants, where, he said, the older man’s guidance was invaluable.

“When I came up in ’51, Monte taught me a lot of things about life in the big city — well, I call it the Big Apple, New York. I learned very quickly because I had to play the games in the Polo Grounds,” he said. “So Monte was there playing alongside of me at all times, and it was just a wonderful feeling to have someone in the outfield with me to make sure I didn’t make a lot of mistakes out there.”

Willie Mays pictured in 1967. AP hide caption

toggle caption AP

Mays, Irvin and Hank Thompson went on to form the first all-black outfield in Game 1 of the 1951 World Series against the Yankees. It was a huge moment for baseball. For Mays? Not so much.

“To me it wasn’t, because I knew those guys … it wasn’t anything different. It made me proud to be a part of that particular unit at that particular time.”

When Irvin was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1973 he acknowledged that he “wasted [his] best years in the Negro Leagues.”

But he added: “I’m philosophical about it. There’s no point in being bitter. You’re not happy with the way things happen, but why make yourself sick inside? There were many guys who could really play who never got a chance at all.”

It was this thoughtfulness that stuck with Mays. When asked about what he will miss about Irvin, Mays said simply, “the man.”

“He was a guy that was sort of like my father. … There was a park by his house there, we would go out and just talk, nothing specific, just talk, mostly about life.”

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After months of planning, maneuvering and dealing, NFL team owners have voted 30-2 in favor of relocating the St. Louis Rams to Los Angeles, while leaving open the option for the San Diego Chargers to share the facility.

Three teams — the Rams, the Chargers and the Oakland Raiders — have spent the past year vying to move to Los Angeles. Not only do the team owners say their stadiums are out of date, but they claim their current cities are unwilling to allocate enough public money to help build new ones. Plus, Los Angeles offers a much larger, greener media market than any of the other cities.

Ultimately, after a long day of presentations, debate and voting in a Houston hotel, Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s proposed $1.86 billion stadium in Inglewood, a suburb of Los Angeles, won 30 votes, surpassing the requisite 24-vote threshold. The funding for the Inglewood stadium will come from Kroenke and other private donors.

The approved plan also leaves room for the Chargers, owned by Dean Spanos, to share the stadium in Inglewood.

The compromise was struck after two previous plans failed to garner enough support. Kroenke’s plan to move the Rams alone to Inglewood fell short, as did the proposal from the Chargers’ Spanos and Raiders owner Mark Davis to build a shared stadium in Carson, Calif., another Los Angeles suburb.

The city of St. Louis had offered $150 million in public money to go toward a new $1.1 billion riverfront stadium, with the rest of the money coming from the state, team owner and NFL. In all, 40 percent of the stadium would have come from public money. Kroenke, however, was not satisfied with the deal, and the league evidently agreed with him. NFL rules stipulate against relocation if a viable stadium proposal has been presented in the team’s current city.

San Diego also had offered money for a new stadium to keep the Chargers in the city. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said: “The more San Diego has done the less engaged the Chargers have become. San Diegans deserve better.”

In fact, of the three teams, Oakland — unwilling to allocate more taxpayer money toward a stadium — was the only one not to offer the NFL a plan for financing a stadium in its current city.

The current deal gives the Chargers the ability to continue to negotiate with the city of San Diego for a more advantageous stadium-financing plan, while keeping the option of moving to the shared stadium in Inglewood. The other team owners also win, as it is expected that the moving teams will each pay a $550 million relocation fee. The real loser of the deal is the Raiders’ Davis, who is left with little leverage for a better stadium deal in Oakland.

Upon the Rams’ return to Los Angeles (they played in the area from 1946 to 1994), the team will play in a temporary facility until the new stadium is ready, most likely for the 2019 season.

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For the fifth time in seven years, Barcelona and Argentine international striker Lionel Messi has won the FIFA Ballon D’Or for best soccer player. Messi received more votes than Real Madrid and Portuguese international Cristiano Ronaldo, and Barcelona teammate and Brazilian international Neymar to set the record for most Ballon D’Or wins.

Messi was dominant this year, scoring 48 goals for club and country. His 43 goals for Barcelona made him the second-highest scorer in La Liga and he also notched 21 assists, helping the club win three major titles during the 2014-2015 season — La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League.

“It is a very special moment for me to be back here on this stage, winning again another Ballon d’Or after being there in the audience watching Cristiano win,” Messi said.

Between them, Messi and Ronaldo have won the Ballon D’Or for the past eight years, with Ronaldo winning the award for 2008, Messi winning from 2009 – 2012, and Ronaldo winning again in 2013 and 2014.

Journalists, national team coaches and team captains vote for the winners. Messi received 41.33 percent of the votes, Ronaldo finished with 27.76 percent and Neymar drew 7.86 percent, according to the BBC.

Messi’s highlight reel from the past season is nothing short of magical, but one goal stands out from the others. In the second half of the first leg of Barcelona’s Champions League semifinal against Bayern Munich in May 2015, Messi seamlessly dribbled around a defender and chipped the ball over the keeper. Watch the goal (complete with commentator Ray Hudson’s hilarious reaction) here.

On the women’s side, United States and Houston Dash midfielder Carli Lloyd, who scored a hat-trick in the World Cup final, won the award.

Lloyd beat out former Germany striker Celia Sasic, who finished second, and Japan midfielder Aya Miyama who helped her team to the World Cup final, where they lost to the U.S.

“It has been a dream ever since I started with the national team. Keep your dreams and just go after them,” Lloyd said.

Carli Lloyd embraces U.S. women’s national team head coach Jill Ellis after winning the award. Ellis won the award for FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football. Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images

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Seventy-five thousand miles is long enough to cross the United States about 25 times. Long enough to circle the equator — three times.

And for 75 years, 75,000 miles was long enough to be legendary. Or more specifically, it was 75,065 miles — the miles-biked-in-a-year record set by Tommy Godwin in 1939 and never broken since.

But on Monday, a man named Kurt Searvogel pedaled past that mark. On Saturday — the last day of his year of extraordinary biking — he’s pushing towards 76,066, a full thousand miles further than Godwin’s legendary feat.

“He him-haws that 76,000 is good enough,” Alicia Searvogel, Kurt’s wife and and one-woman support team posted on Facebook Saturday morning. “No! He’s done but he’s not done. … 223 MILES TODAY!!!!”

It’s just 223 miles in a day, after all … only 15 miles more than the average daily pace that 53-year-old Searvogel, a.k.a. Tarzan, has maintained since Jan 10, 2015.

How exactly do you go about biking 75,000 miles in a year? “Only A Game,” at member station WBUR, spoke to Searvogel and shared a day in the life of a man tackling the HAM’R — the Highest Annual Mileage Record:

” ‘Normally I’ll wake up around 5:00 and get some breakfast,’ Searvogel said, ‘and be on the bike around 6:00, pretty much ride until about 8:00 or 9:00 at night. Keep it to a 14-15 hour day and then — and then get enough sleep to keep going for the next day.’

“This has been Searvogel’s schedule for 365 days in a row. Wake up. Ride 200 miles. Upload the data from his GPS. Eat and sleep.”

Searvogel’s planned itinerary called for a “rest and recovery” day every seventh day: a mere 176 miles. But his records show he usually blew past 200 even on those “rest” days.

It was an eventful year. Searvogel got in two collisions with cars, was diagnosed with asthma, had a heart scare, traveled through eight states and went through multiple bikes, the Tampa Bay Times reports. And in October, he and Alicia, his crew chief from the start of the journey, were married. He still clocked 175 miles that day.

Searvogel’s not the only one avidly pursuing the HAM’R. The record first set by Godwin — a vegetarian Brit who battled foul weather and World War II food rationing, in a feat well worth reading about over at WBUR — is also being chased by Steve Abraham. Abraham was hit by a moped and broke his ankle — but kept riding. He restarted the year counter in August and is continuing his effort.

But for now the HAM’R is Searvogel’s, and the only question is how high he’ll push the record mark.

The final stretch is a ride from Jupiter, Fla., to St. Augustine, Alicia Searvogel said on Facebook. You can watch Kurt Searvogel’s progress through his GPS tracker.

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A former St. Louis Cardinals director for baseball development, Chris Correa, pleaded guilty to five counts of unauthorized access to protected information on the Houston Astros, including scouting and injury reports, trade discussions and draft rankings.

According to the Department of Justice, Correa, 35, admitted that from March 2013 through at least March 2014, when he was in charge of scouting for the Cardinals, he illicitly accessed the Astros’ online database, called Ground Control, as well as email accounts of people in the Astros organization to obtain proprietary data.

Each count carries a maximum possible sentence of five years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 fine.

A Justice Department statement said:

“In one instance, Correa was able to obtain an Astros employee’s password because that employee has previously been employed by the Cardinals. When he left the Cardinals organization, the employee had to turn over his Cardinals-owned laptop to Correa along with the laptop’s password. Having that information, Correa was able to access the now-Astros employee’s Ground Control and e-mail accounts using a variation of the password he used while with the Cardinals.”

Federal investigators began looking into a possible breach this summer. It became apparent that the hack may have had something to do with the Cardinals’ familiarity with a former executive, Jeff Luhnow, who had gone to work for the Astros.

As we reported at the time:

“Luhnow became the Astros’ general manager in late 2011; prior to that, he was a vice president in the Cardinals organization, focusing on evaluating players. A report Tuesday by The New York Times says investigators suspect the Cardinals broke into the Astros’ network of special databases where the team kept ‘discussions about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports.’

“The information compiled by Luhnow could be particularly valuable — he’s a former business consultant whose analytical approach was credited with modernizing how the Cardinals evaluated talent. Despite being a divisive figure, he rose to lead the team’s scouting department.”

“Unauthorized computer intrusion is not to be taken lightly,” U.S. attorney Kenneth Magidson said in the DOJ statement. “Whether it’s preserving the sanctity of America’s pastime or protecting trade secrets, those that unlawfully gain proprietary information by accessing computers without authorization must be held accountable for their illegal actions.”

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