Peyton Manning Doesn’t Want Your Youth League Pity

I took a break from being hunched over my laptop in the Super Bowl media work center to check out the Madden Most Valuable Protectors award, which was a new honor given to offensive lines as a whole. Accepting on behalf of the New Orleans Saints was Archie Manning. As you can imagine, the questions turned from the Saints’ line to Peyton pretty quickly. ↵↵While Archie’s time at the podium was limited, and he’s booked for something like 6,000 speaking engagements, he did manage to give the assembled media a good young Peyton story:↵

↵↵⇥[Peyton] enjoyed winning early on. I remember the first time Peyton played on this organized baseball team and they weren’t very good. They were getting beat pretty bad every game, but the coach would always tell them they tied. I’d be driving home and he’d say “This coach must think we’re really stupid or something because we’re getting beat so bad.” I always thought from that day Peyton never liked getting beat very much.↵↵↵This should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen this clip or this clip of Manning freaking out both on the sideline or during actual gameplay when something doesn’t go right. The man is all about perfection, which makes the growing consensus that the Saints will win all the more puzzling here in Miami.↵

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