We all know the New England Patriots were notorious for cheating under the Bill Belichick / Tom Brady era, but so did Peyton Manning apparently. This week during the Broncos Live training camp show, Steve Atwater and Orlando Franklin were talking Peyton during the 2013 season.
One story Franklin shared stuck out to me. When the Denver Broncos traveled to New England in 2013, Manning was so concerned with the Patriots cheating that he stopped the team bus on the way to facility to do a walk-through in a forest.
“I think it was about 2013 we were in New England. … We flew out there on the Friday. When you fly out on a Friday, you typically do a walk-through on Saturday. We went and got on the buses and pulled up to like the forest. It was like a forest — pine trees all over the place. Got out of the buses and started walking, walked for about five minutes. I wondered, ‘are we going on a hike right now?’ And then we get in the middle of this forest, and this opens up — there’s no trees — and that’s where we did the walk-through.”
The Broncos ended up losing that game after blowing a 24-0 lead, but Manning got the last laugh beating out Tom Brady in their final matchup in the 2015 AFC Championship Game on his way to a Super Bowl 50 title.