Peyton Manning Once Called Tom Brady “The Best Beggar” in the NFL

One of the most frustrating things about the NFL is when penalties slow the game down. And the penalty that rubs most fans the wrong way is the roughing-the-passer personal foul. That’s because many rightly point out that a lot of those are erroneously called due to the referees’ over-protectiveness of quarterbacks, especially the stars.

Roughing the passers is sometimes warranted. But more often than not, the penalty doesn’t seem to be called in the spirit of physical NFL football. QBs have also started trying to sell the fouls, which makes it even more frustrating — and even more difficult for referees to decipher in real time.

Sometimes, it feels like a QB will go down in a heap if someone so much as blows on him. This also applies to the personal fouls called on QBs who decide to tuck, run, and slide. While quarterbacks often benefit from these penalties, there are those — including some old-school players who played in an era when QBs took a lot more punishment — who are not a fan of how the rule has evolved in today’s NFL. Peyton Manning is one of the most notable examples.

“I don’t like when quarterbacks beg for the personal foul call. When quarterbacks beg for it, that’s what makes the defensive players mad,” the former Bronco told Stephen A. Smith last year.

After mentioning the “beggar” moniker, Stephen A., who was interviewing Manning on stage in front of a crowd, asked who Manning thought the best beggar was. Surprisingly, Manning didn’t have to think long before giving his answer.

“I think the guy you interviewed a couple days ago (Brady) was pretty good at it… But it was kind of natural. He just kinda had this look for the guy so, seemed to work for him,” Manning said with a laugh.

Brady himself has admitted that he received a bit of a different whistle from referees during his playing days. In 2022, shortly after his second and final retirement, the seven-time Super Bowl champ acknowledged that officials “let [him] get away with a lot,” particularly when it came to unsportsmanlike conduct penalties that the ultra-competitive Brady believes he probably should have received.

“I do know that [the officials] probably let me get away with a lot of unsportsmanlike conducts, talking smack to the other team and talking smack to the refs when I don’t think I get the right call. I’m kind of a pain in their ass if you don’t already know that.”

When asked about the best beggar in the game today, Manning took a little more time to think about it. Though fans suggested Patrick Mahomes, Manning didn’t agree, saying Mahomes doesn’t slide as much and therefore doesn’t draw as many of those calls.

This interview took place before the 2024 season, however, when Mahomes began using the fake slide/fake run out of bounds to gain extra penalty yardage more frequently. He’s starting to become the Brady of the league in more ways than one.

While the Peyton Manning-Tom Brady rivalry is one of the most epic in sports, there was never any animosity between the two. Manning surely believes Brady was, in fact, a great beggar (Brady would probably agree), but he said it as more of a compliment than an insult.

Some may say Manning is salty, but we don’t see why he would be. He lost the first six matchups with Brady, a stretch capped by a 20-3 embarrassment in the 2004 Divisional playoffs. However, Manning won six of the final 11 clashes. That includes a 3-0 mark across the pair’s final three playoff matchups, as he beat his nemesis in the 2006, 2013, and 2015 AFC Championship Games.