Peyton Manning hints at Patriots cheating in MNF broadcast

Former Vol Peyton Manning took a shot at the Pats on NFL’s Monday Night Football.

He may be retired, but Tennessee football legend Peyton Manning still knows how to throw daggers. The future NFL Hall of Famer joined Rece Davis and Kirk Herbstreit on Monday Night Football, in a guest appearance along with Charles Barkley.

There were lots of back and forth jokes among them all, but the superstar quarterback managed to get in a shot at the New England Patriots at one point. It came when discussing how a coach calls a play into the quarterback’s headset.

According to Peyton Manning, the communication between coaches and players is supposed to be cut off with 15 seconds left on the play clock. However, obviously referring to the Pats, he followed that up with “Now certain teams, maybe in the Northeast, they don’t cut their lines.” Here’s the full video.

It’s pretty clear that Manning has every reason to be bitter about the Pats’ cheating. Back in 2015, Manning was revealed to have always held team meetings in the hallways when visiting Foxborough, Mass. out of fear that the locker rooms were being bugged.

Considering the fact that Spygate wasn’t exposed until 2007, this level of cheating could have had a huge impact on Manning failing to reach and win two more Super Bowls at the end of the 2003 and 2004 seasons, when he lost to Tom Brady in Massachusetts both times. As a result, he should continually throw shots in for as long as possible.

This wasn’t the only time the two got savage, though. Manning had a quick response to Barkley when Barkley joked that Manning didn’t commit to play for the Auburn Tigers due to grades. That whole exchange can be seen here.

The best bit of irony here is that Manning’s greatest performance with the Vols was the 1997 SEC Championship game, when he had four touchdowns to beat Auburn. He led his team back from a double-digit second-half deficit in the process.

Both guys had a conversation about the state of their programs as well. Barkley joked about his accurate prediction of Auburn dominating UT in Knoxville back in 2004 with a 34-10 win by discussing how much bigger the Tigers were. Auburn won twice that year, also beating them in the SEC title game.

At that point, Manning was called out, as Barkley joked that he needed to donate more money to UT so they could get better in the weight room. However, Manning retorted by saying the Vols were on their way back under Jeremy Pruitt, whom he described as the “right guy leading the charge” for the program.

This all made for great television, and honestly, those two should come on permanently. It’s clear that Peyton Manning and Charles Barkley are made to broadcast football games, and they should do a crossover where they do both football and basketball games now. Both have proven just how hilarious they are while also knowing the sports they played.