Peyton Manning Even Practices His Dang Celebrations, Rehearsed Game Of Keepaway On Friday

NBC

After Peyton Manning took down Brett Farve’s career touchdown passes record, his receivers had a little spontaneous fun, keeping the record-shattering ball away from their quarterback with a game of hot potato.

OR, so they wanted you to think that.

Was it spontaneous, or is Peyton Manning such a meticulous automaton that he asked his receivers to practice the fucking celebration on Friday?

The later. Practice the celebration. On Friday. Just in case he broke the record.

From ESPN:

Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos’ wide receivers had toyed with the idea of a game of keep-away with the ball should Manning set the NFL record for career touchdown passes Sunday night. The group even did it in Friday’s practice.

“He came to me … and said if anybody scores the 509, that’s what we should do,” receiver Demaryius Thomas said. “He said ‘Keep the ball away,’ like hopscotch or whatever. I was like, ‘Cool.'”

God, DAMN that is pathetic.

“Uh, hey guys, I think if it happens, we should do something whimsical, but I’ve been watching our whimsy on tape and it seems forced. Let’s run some reps.”

Coordinated fun. Manning, of course, as is his MO, tried to play it down.

“I can’t believe they actually did it,” Manning said. “We sort of joked about it during the week … I’ve lost my vertical leap, it’s not there anymore, my side-to-side agility is not quite as quick, so it hurt me.

Haha, yea right. I bet he even had a name for the celebration and called it out as he was running to the end zone.

In fact, you know he did.