Peyton Manning was never known for his rushing ability or for using his legs at all. Over his 18-year career, he ran for just 667 yards and scored 18 rushing touchdowns, most of them on QB sneaks. But in 2013, the Sheriff notched his first and only career rushing TD in five years, breaking a drought at age 37.
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The setting was AT&T Stadium, as the Dallas Cowboys took on Manning’s Denver Broncos. Manning had started the season on fire, throwing 16 TDs with 0 INTs while leading Denver to a 4-0 record heading into the Sunday afternoon contest. Meanwhile, the Cowboys were 2-2 and looking to climb above .500 and establish some consistency.
After a wild first half featuring five total touchdowns, Manning marched the Broncos down the field in search of a sixth before halftime. They reached 3rd-and-goal at Dallas’ 1-yard line. That’s when the Sheriff pulled off one of the greatest bootleg fakes the league has ever seen. The entire stadium was faked out.
Never Forget when Payton Manning faked out the entire stadium
pic.twitter.com/7mD6YXROxA— Footballism (@FootbaIIism) August 22, 2025
The 1-yard rushing TD was Manning’s first since 2008 when he was with the Indianapolis Colts. It was a massive score too, allowing for the Broncos to go up 28-17 just before halftime. They would go on to win the game in a wild 51-48 thriller.
The clip of Manning’s fake resurfaced online recently. It got more than 3.5 million views on Twitter alone, with nearly 37K likes. Seemingly, the surprise element of the play has stood the test of time, as fans still react to it in awe.
“Dude faked me knowing it was a fake. Damn that was good,” one wrote.
“He did in fact finesse the whole stadium. I was at this game,” someone else shared.
“Fooled me again,” another joked.
Fooled me again
— Licensed Communicator (@J4tymes) August 24, 2025
One fan even joked about how slow Manning was running to the end zone.
“They went to commercial, came back, and he was still running to the end zone,” they quipped.
The funny thing is that Manning actually still recalls the iconic play to this day. He once sat down in his car over a FaceTime to unpack the moment, and he fully recognized that he was running super slow as he touched paydirt.
“It was a 1-yard touchdown run, but it felt like 40 yards. It took me that long to get to the corner of the endzone. But DeMarcus Ware did bite on the fake… All 11 Cowboys defenders bit on the fake. Even the referees bit on the fake,” Manning said via the Denver Broncos YouTube.
Peyton later shared that he felt somewhat disrespected that nobody expected him to run. Something that was confirmed when DeMarcus Ware straight-up said in an interview that he never imagined Manning to run in that situation.
All in all, it’s a great NFL moment to look back on and one of the greatest forgotten regular-season games ever played. The Cowboys went on to come back in the 2nd half and recapture the lead, before choking it away and losing on a game-winning field goal. That season, the Broncos went on to go 13-3 with Manning throwing an insane 55 TDs.
Furthermore, the bootleg fake wasn’t the only time the Sheriff found the end zone with his legs in dramatic fashion. In college, he did almost the same thing, producing an identical highlight to the one he made in the NFL.
