I’ve been a football fan for an awfully long time. Ever since I watched my first Super Bowl. I was sitting with my dad, and he was relaxing, having a good time. He’s a Jets fan, so he’s learned to take the game in stride. He knew that the enjoyment of the game was about watching the skill, precision, and athleticism that was being showcased. It was in that game that I first heard about Peyton Manning.
He was all over the place. He picked apart a very good Bears defense and wound up winning Super Bowl MVP. Ever since then, I’d been a Peyton Manning fan.
He was a stand-up guy. You never saw him getting arrested, getting in trouble, or causing a ruckus within the NFL. He didn’t beat his kids. He was in kid friendly commercials, and he was the face of companies such as Papa John’s and Nationwide Insurance.
He was the NFL’s golden boy, the focus of many people when compared to people like Adam “Pacman” Jones or Greg Hardy, or even Ray Rice. “Why can’t NFL players all be like Peyton,” they said. “Why can’t they be people who never do anything wrong, like Peyton,” they said.
I understand, the allegations of HGH use have definitely stained what has been an excellent career. HGH is a banned substance in professional football, and the fact that it had been associated with the NFL’s golden boy has raised cries of outrage from the Manningites, myself included. I thought to myself, no way this kind of guy would cheat. I didn’t think he had it in him.
That all changed overnight, literally.
I read the article on Valentine’s Day. It was written by Shaun King, and it details an aggressive and vicious smear campaign against a woman who says that Manning sexually assaulted her. The story, which ran in the NY Daily News, details the discovery of 74 pages of explosive and bombastic court records, which detail actions, the cover-up, and the extent to which the smear campaign reached.
As I read the article, I became acutely aware of how much I was willing to assume wasn’t true about people that I idolized. Peyton Manning was a role model, and I felt that he would never do something so awful. Hell, when I first saw the headline of the article, I thought to myself, there is absolutely no way this could be true.
Yet, here we are.
The details of these actions are apparent in the court documents that are linked to the article. I urge you, as a reader, to go and look at these documents. They are absolutely damning, and I also urge you to read the article by Shaun King. It’s investigative reporting at its finest.
Peyton Manning’s legacy is tarnished, stained soot black by the accusation, the act, and the actions taken afterward. I don’t support Peyton Manning anymore. His actions are those of someone who thinks that they can get away with what they want, and I don’t stand for that. Not at all.
