Peyton Manning Can Be A Real Jerk (Slate magazine)

Manning is also known for lighting into his line when things go awry. "For a guy who doesn't get sacked a lot, you don't want to hear it when he does," says Meadows, who left the Colts after the 2003 season and retired in 2007. Meadows says that during the 2000 season he was diagnosed with pneumonia on a Monday and had lost 14 pounds by the time he was able to practice again that Friday. Still ailing, Meadows managed to play that weekend. But after the team lost at New England, Manning ripped his performance: "We're paying you to be better than that."


Anecdotes like those are usually marshaled to demonstrate Manning's competitiveness and will to win. He makes up with teammates afterward, buying presents for his linemen and hugging and thanking them after the Colts' next success, as he does with Saturday in the 2005 video. What has rankled teammates in the past, though, is an insensitivity to life beyond football. Meadows says that he and Manning were close during the quarterback's first two years in the NFL. Then the lineman had his first daughter; he didn't want to talk protection schemes or stay late to watch film. When Meadows left practice early to attend the birth of his second daughter, he says Manning asked why he couldn't have babies in the offseason.



LOL



I love Peyton Manning a lot and so do a most football fans of course. No doubt the coverage has been about Peyton the Football god the past two weeks.



Therefore it is sort of amusing to see Slate in a move that is in opposition to 99.9 percent of the media talk, Here Slate talks about Manning's obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. I am sure the article got some hits and howls of protests :)



See Peyton Manning Is a Genius The Super Bowl quarterback is also a huge pain in the ass.

The article has a very interesting old SI article linked that shows why Peyton is so interesting. He is sort of a goof off the field that can't do basic things but he is a genus on the field. Which when you think of it is a trait of many incredible intelligent people.

I can recall another article that talked about how Peyton was very old school and his time at Tennessee. His dad Archie Manning said one of his biggest mistakes was not realizing how talking about his College time at Ole Miss he was giving Peyton the impression that would be what his experience was like. Of course even the College game has changed since then