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Peter King reflects on Peyton Manning's retirement press conference

Manning prepared for his press conference just like he prepared for everything else in his football career.

Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

On Monday Eric Goodman and Les Shapiro from The Afternoon Drive talked with many sports figures, including Peter King, about Peyton Manning's retirement.

Peter King on the emotions of the retirement press conference:

I haven’t been to one that was exactly like this. Because look, it was you know Peyton Manning, this thing was scripted. You know this thing was going to be scripted from start to finish. This is a guy who everything in his life is planned. So I think generally I was surprised that for 11 minutes and 45 seconds of his talk he was choking up for about half of that. Which I would not have expected. I would have expected him to choke up a couple of times, but there was a good five or six minutes, at least half the time where you wondered, ‘Man, is he going to lose it?’ And I think that got everyone in the room a little bit emotional too. So I thought it was really well done.

On if now was the right time for Manning to retire:

He had to retire now - it would have been potentially ugly. I mean imagine if he goes to St. Louis (he meant Los Angeles) and Jeff Fisher says to him on August 25th, uh, we’re starting Case Keenum.

King goes on to talk about what he will remember most about Manning and answers (kind of) if he would put Manning on his Mount Rushmore of QBs.

Bonus Listen

Bill Polian talks about when he first knew Peyton Manning was a special player.