Stories about Peyton Manning and his unrelenting work ethic are endless, but this tale from Clyde Christensen shows just how dedicated the QB was to his craft.
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Over his legendary 18 season career, Peyton Manning racked up all the awards. He won 2 Super Bowls with two different franchises, earned 14 Pro Bowl selections, and was named league MVP 5 times, the most for any player ever.
For that matter, the Sheriff even managed to win Comeback Player of the Year after his horrific neck injury in 2o11. The point of this is that Peyton Manning was a serial winner who did whatever it took to be the greatest.
He was the ultimate competitor. Just as he approached his rehabilitation from the neck injury with a singular purpose in his mind, he took his preparation for game-day extremely seriously.
He became well known for his time-consuming pre-snap adjustments, simply because he studied opponents so well that he noticed things about defenses that other QBs might have missed or ignored.
According to Clyde Christensen, who was his OC with the Colts, Manning wouldn’t restrict his work to the film room. He couldn’t wait that long. Being as eager as he was, he would watch film on the plane ride back from away games.
And if you didn’t want to partake in this freakishly dedicated activity late at night, you were out of luck. Christensen recalled how Manning once asked a stewardess to wake up him up so that they could watch film together.
Clyde Christensen Recounts Incredible Peyton Manning Story
As originally reported by the Indy Star, Manning impressed his OC with his unbelievable work ethic. Apparently, Manning’s dedication knew no bounds, as he would practice while golfing and even irritate SNL with his perfectionist tendencies.
“I’d be asleep on the plane ride home coming back from a road win, sometimes at 1, 2 in the morning, and the stewardess would come tap me on the shoulder,” Christensen narrated.
“‘Peyton wants to see you in the back of the plane.’ I’d tell her to tell him I was sleeping. She’d come back a few minutes later. ‘He said he doesn’t care if you’re sleeping.’ So I’d walk back there and we’d go over the entire game, play after play after play.”
“He loved every single thing there was to football, he noticed every detail. If I took two steaks in the dinner line, he wouldn’t let that slip. I never went on a trip with him where everything wasn’t set — where he was going to lift, throw, watch film. We’d be on vacation, and we’d be doing throwing sessions on the ninth fairway before we golfed.”
“I remember hearing about the time he hosted “Saturday Night Live” from a guy who works for the show. Peyton shot their budget in three days. Kept everyone over time all week long.”
“‘They tried telling him, ‘This is New York, this is expensive …’ He said, ‘I don’t care about your budget. I’m not going out here and embarrassing myself. We’re going to work until we get this right.'”
If you didn’t know, Christensen is now the QB coach on the Bucs, which of course means he works with Tom Brady on a daily basis. It certainly would be interesting to hear from him how the 2 legendary signal-callers compare.
