“Peyton Manning pissed off Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook at once”: When the NFL legend cracked a cruel joke about the duo’s split while hosting the ESPY’s

Peyton Manning

Peyton Manning knew how to crack jokes back in his playing days, and he was still a menace after. He absolutely destroyed Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook once.

Manning retired a two time Super Bowl champion, four time MVP, and was named to the Pro Bowl a record 14 times. Before retiring Manning held several passing records (which Brady eventually surpassed), and his 2013 season goes down as perhaps the greatest season by any quarterback ever.

That year, he threw for an NFL record 5,477 yards and an NFL record 55 touchdowns. Nobody has come close to touching those numbers. Manning is still heavily involved in the NFL, serving as a co-host to perhaps the most entertaining broadcast, the Manningcast, with his brother Eli Manning.

After his career, Manning hosted the ESPY’s in 2017, and there he made a classic joke that’s still talked about to this day, angering two NBA superstars in one go.

Also Read: “The NBA is so easy”: When Tom Brady took a shot at Draymond Green and basketball players while comparing the NBA and NFL

Peyton Manning destroyed Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook

Back in 2017, the NBA’s atmosphere was still shaken by Kevin Durant’s free agency move. After the 2015-16 season, Durant signed with the Golden State Warriors in a league altering move that’s still discussed today.

The Warriors won a record 73 games the last year and had bested Durant’s Thunder in the Conference Finals to get to the Finals (where they blew a 3-1 lead but that’s not relevant). Conversations around Durant were not positive at the time.

As everyone predicted Durant and the Warriors destroyed everyone in their way to win a title in their first year together, and KD got his first ring. However, everyone claimed he had taken the easy way out, and memes were flying around about Durant’s weak move.

His split with his former co-star Russell Westbrook had been documented as well as the two didn’t appear to be on good terms. They went head to head in games against each other, literally, showing that there was bad blood over Durant’s move.

Now that the context has been set up, you can see why a joke about either of these stars, especially both of them together, may not fly over so well. However, Peyton Manning being Peyton Manning didn’t care. He went straight for the killshot.

That’s a ruthless burn, and KD and Westbrook’s reactions should be enough to tell you how they felt about that one. It was definitely a sensitive topic at the time, and Manning simply didn’t care.

Also Read: Who is Sonya Curry’s new boyfriend : Everything you need to know about Steven Johnson and his NFL career

Post Edited By: Ashish Priyadarshi
Kevin Durant NBA NFL Peyton Manning Russell Westbrook

About the author

Ashish Priyadarshi

Ashish Priyadarshi is The SportsRush's content manager and editor. Ashish freelanced for 1 year in the NFL division before taking on an editorial role in the company. He then tacked on managing content while adding on a writing role in the NBA division. Ashish has been closely following the NFL and NBA since the 2012 season when the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and Derrick Rose was at the height of his powers. Since then, Ashish has focused on honing his knowledge for both leagues in, even writing crossover pieces. In his free time, Ashish is an avid basketball player, he loves to watch movies and TV shows, immersing himself in the cinematic world. Ashish studies computer science and data science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and would love to mesh his love for sports with his technical skills.

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