For the past four months, high-profile, active NFL quarterbacks have mostly remained mum on the subjects of Tom Brady, the inflation of footballs and the general comedy that is Deflategate. But when they are asked about it and can’t avoid the topic, what they don’t say it just as interesting as what they do say. Here’s Peyton Manning on the topics while at a weekend event for a children’s hospital in Indianapolis:
“Like I said, I’ll speak it as clearly and slowly as I can. [Brady is] my friend, he’ll always be my friend. I don’t know what happened, I don’t have much more than that for you.”
The Associated Press didn’t say whether Manning winked a couple of times while nudging a reporter after the three sentences.
To be fair, that’s all Manning should say. It’s not like he and Brady are sitting up late at night having gab-sessions on the phone or exchanging text messages like they were two clowns working as assistant equipment managers. Brady and Manning are professional friends. And Manning probably has absolutely no idea what happened in that locker room. And if he does know what happened in that locker room, it’s because everyone else is doing it too.
You sort of think it’s the latter, because when Manning was about the deflation levels of footballs, he played the role of the dumb rube he is certainly not, speaking like a country boy seeing the city for the first time.
“I went to Tennessee, I can’t give you that much information. A man’s got to know his limitations.”
Though Manning was joking, all that was missing was a “Gee, mister…” at the front of the sentence. No one believes that you, Peyton Manning, all-time quarterbacking and control freak great, are unaware about the vagaries of the inflation or deflation of footballs, nor that you have no opinion on the NFL’s scandal du jour, “friend” or not.
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