He has vehemently denied the former, while downplaying the latter, saying he merely “mooned” a teammate in the trainer’s presence — “not exactly a criminal offense, but out of line.”
That said, he’s received far more attention for his off-the-field philanthropy than for any alleged shenanigans. He and brother Eli, a quarterback for the New York Giants, helped the Red Cross deliver supplies to their hometown of New Orleans and other Gulf Coast locales after Hurricane Katrina. Last year, he received the Bart Starr Award for his charity work.
His PeyBack Foundation has raised more than $10 million for at-risk kids in Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana and Tennessee, and his philanthropic relationship with Indianapolis’ St. Vincent Hospital prompted the medical center to rename its children’s facility the Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital in 2007.
The five-time MVP is one of only two quarterbacks to beat every team in the NFL (Brett Favre is the other). He’s the only quarterback to win Super Bowls with two teams, and he holds records for most career touchdown passes (539), most passing yards (71,940), most touchdowns in a season (55), most passing yards in a season (5,477), most wins (200) and most games with 300 or more yards passing (93), to name a few.
An iron man with deadly accuracy, Manning played every game of his first 13 seasons, until a neck injury sidelined him for all of 2011. The following year, the Indianapolis Colts, for whom Manning had played his entire career, drafted Stanford University quarterback Andrew Luck, and Manning headed west to the Mile High City.
There, he picked up where he had left off, playing every game for his first three seasons, while completing almost 68% of his passes and throwing for an average of at least 291 yards per game. He also threw 131 touchdowns in that time and set the record for most touchdowns in a season in 2013.
If there has been any gripe against Manning, it’s that he’s sometimes faltered when the lights were their brightest.
Despite helming four stellar University of Tennessee teams from 1994 to 1997, he neither beat the archrival Florida Gators nor skippered the Volunteers to a national championship in his college career. Doing either might have secured him a Heisman Trophy (Charles Woodson edged him out in 1997). It probably didn’t help his case that his backup for two of those years, the arguably less talented Tee Martin, managed both feats after the Colts took Manning as the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft.
As a pro, he managed a 200-92 record, placing him atop an elite class that has only three members — Favre at 199-123 and New England’s Tom Brady at 194-60. Despite winning 68% of the games he played, lost in that statistic is a surprisingly inefficient playoff record of just 14-13.
It’s perhaps fitting then that Manning snared his second Super Bowl after playing the worst football of his career. Not since his rookie season had Manning completed less than 60% of his passes, and his touchdown-to-interception ratio of 9-to-17 earned him a quarterback rating of 67.9, landing him 34th in the league.
Peyton Manning to retire, Broncos say #JHedzWorlD
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