Facts about Peyton Manning
Peyton Manning Biography
Peyton Manning’s long career as one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks included Super Bowl wins with two different teams: with the Indianapolis Colts in 2007 and with the Denver Broncos in 2016.
The son of NFL quarterback Archie Manning, Peyton Manning was a star at the University of Tennessee for four years before turning pro. He was chosen by the Indianapolis Colts as the first overall draft pick in 1998. In a career that lasted from 1998 to 2016, Manning compiled a brilliant record that put him among elite NFL quarterbacks like Brett Favre and Steve Young. His work habits — studying game films at all hours and memorizing the playbook down to the last comma — are legendary. Off the field, Manning’s average-guy appeal made him one of the NFL’s more visible pitchmen, and he has been seen hawking pizza, insurance and many other products on TV and in print.
Peyton Manning’s critics long argued that his prowess on the field was overshadowed by his team’s habit of coming up short in big playoff games; despite season after season of stellar play and winning records, Manning and the Colts did not advance to the Super Bowl until 2007, after the 2006 season. That year he led the Colts to a 29-17 win over the Chicago Bears, and he was named the Super Bowl’s most valuable player. At the end of the 2009 season he led the Colts to the Super Bowl again, where they lost to the New Orleans Saints, 31-17. Peyton Manning signed a new five-year contract with Indianapolis in 2011, one worth $90 million over five years. However, he had neck surgeries in May and September of that year — the latter a “one-level cervical neck fusion” — which kept him off the field for the entire 2011 NFL season. Facing a $28 million payment due to Manning on March 8th of 2012, the Colts cut their star player on March 7th of that year, drafting Stanford phenom Andrew Luck to replace him.
Peyton Manning joined the Denver Broncos the same year, taking over as quarterback and leading them to the playoffs. In 2013, Sports Illustrated named him its Sportsman of the Year, saying “For two decades Peyton Manning has methodically elevated the standards of everybody from NFL quarterbacks to video-room interns to offspring named in his honor.” That year he set a new record for touchdown passes (55) and receiving yards (5477) in one season; the Broncos made it to the Super Bowl, but were dominated by the Seattle Seahawks, 43-8. The Broncos, with 39-year-old Peyton Manning at the helm, made it to Super Bowl 50 in 2016 (after the 2015 season), and the Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers 24-10 for Manning’s second Super Bowl win. A month later, Manning announced that he was retiring from the NFL.
Extra credit
Peyton Manning wore jersey number 18… Archie Manning played for the New Orleans Saints, the Houston Oilers and the Minnesota Vikings in a career that lasted from 1971 to 1984 … Peyton Manning’s younger brother Eli Manning plays quarterback for the NFL’s New York Giants. Peyton Manning was the Super Bowl MVP in 2008, the year after Peyton won the award; they’re the first brothers to quarterback Super Bowl-winning teams… Peyton Manning is 6’5″ tall, according to NFL.com… Peyton Manning and his wife Ashley were married in 2001. They had their first children, twins, on 31 March 2011: daughter Mosley Thompson Manning and son Marshall Williams Manning… The St. Vincent Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis was renamed as Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent in 2007, after Manning made a major donation. The size of the donation was not announced, but local TV station WTHR reported that “a hospital source said to look in the neighborhood of $50 million. That’s what Mel Simon donated to get his name on the Clarion Cancer Center, a project about the same size as Peyton Manning’s Children’s Hospital.”