Former Broncos player Orlando Franklin claims that Peyton Manning once held practice in the woods to prevent the Patriots from spying.
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The New England Patriots have made themselves notorious around the NFL for cheating. Often times, their method involves videotaping another team’s practice to get an idea of their game plan.
The original Spygate occurred in 2007 when Patriots scouts filmed a New York Jets practice from a unapproved location. More recently, they were caught doing the same thing with the Bengals sideline in 2019. For the latter, the Patriots were slapped with a $1.1 million fine and docked a third round pick in the 20201 draft.
Also read: New York Jets Wide Receivers : Chris Hogan Signs with Patriots AFC East Rivals
Payton Manning Story
Former Broncos lineman Orlando Franklin co-hosts a show with Steve Atwater. The show reports news live from the Broncos training camp.
During the show yesterday, Franklin explained that the camera couldn’t pan out. He said it was done to limit the film available for other teams to scout, and was then reminded of an old Peyton Manning story.
According to Franklin, Manning was extremely paranoid about the Patriots cheating ways. He was so afraid, in fact, that he forced the team to hold a walkthrough in the forest once, so they couldn’t be spied on.
Franklin explained, “When Peyton was here, he was a stickler on that. (He) didn’t want anybody to see any plays, so everything that we did was really top secret. 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.”
Brady vs. Manning Rivalry
During Manning’s time in the NFL, he and Patriots QB largely dominated the AFC. Despite Peyton’s efforts, the Broncos lost the game following the “forest walk-through”. They blew a 24-0 and ended up losing 34-31.
Manning had the last laugh over Brady though. In their last game against each other, Manning got the upper hand and won the 2015 AFC Championship. He then went on to win the Super Bowl in what turned out to be his last season in the NFL.
Final Stats from the rivalry
Brady: | H2H wins-11 | H2H Playoff Wins-2 | H2H AFC Championship Wins-1 |
Manning: | H2H wins-6 | H2H Playoff Wins-3 | H2H AFC Championship Wins-3 |
