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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Charlie Wilson

NFL coach's ruthless reason behind Peyton Manning's quarterback backups lack of practice

As a coach when you have a quarterback, who has a strong case of being the greatest of all-time, you're not going to be overly thrilled about the prospect of not playing him.

And that's exactly what the Indianapolis Colts were thinking when they had Peyton Manning - who hadn't missed a game throughout the first 13 years of his career.

Manning had hardly given his back-up a slither of an opportunity - only coming out of the game and giving them reps when the Colts had an unassailable lead over their opponents.

During a pre-season session, fellow NFL coach turned analyst Jon Gruden noticed that Manning's back-ups were not being given much time with the offense to practice, and decided to ask Colts offensive coordinator Tom Moore why that was.

Moore hilariously responded: "Fellas, if 18 (Manning) goes down we're f****d, and we don't practice f****d."

Indeed, Moore turned out to be correct in his harsh but valid statement. Out of nowhere, Manning was ruled out for the entire year in 2011 after undergoing two neck surgeries - which threatened the future of his career.

That season, the Colts were the worst team in the league. Manning's back-up was Curtis Painter and the franchise also signed Kerry Collins out of retirement.

Manning did eventually miss a season in 2011 - with the team hugely struggling (Elsa/Getty Images)

Both quarterbacks could not come close to replicating what Manning brought to the team, as they had the worst ranked offense in the league and finished with a 2-14 record.

That saw the Colts given the number one draft pick in a class which was slated to have the most highly-rated quarterback prospect to be available in decades, Andrew Luck. The team ultimately decided to move on from Manning to draft Luck.

Manning went on to join the Denver Broncos - leading them to having statistically the best offense in NFL history in 2013, when he threw for a whopping 55 touchdowns. The Broncos eventually went to the Super Bowl that season, but were dominated by the Seattle Seahawks.

Two years later though, Manning won a Super Bowl with the Broncos in his last ever game, retiring after that season.

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