Peyton Manning Recalls Stories and Offers Advice to Denver Nuggets Players

Peyton Manning met with players for the Nuggets during an online Zoom Meeting.

Peyton Manning sat in front of his computer today to participate in an online Zoom meeting. Behind him was a background featuring Neyland Stadium, in all of its beauty, sporting the world famous orange and white checkerboards with 102,445 fans screaming at the top of their lungs. Manning was preparing to meet with players for the Denver Nuggets — which share a city with the Broncos, where Manning spent the final years of his career.

Manning provided the players with long stories from his career, as well as advice for their futures (courtesy of the Denver Post). One of the more memorable moments from the meeting came when Manning took an unprovoked shot at the Chargers. One of the Nuggets asked him for advice on how to deal with playing in front of an empty arena, to which Manning replied: “I’m not the one to ask that question. You’d probably have to ask somebody with the Chargers or one of these other teams.” The Chargers and Manning’s Broncos have been rivals for as long as anyone can remember — and the former Volunteer defeated San Diego 10 times during his time in the league.

One of the Nuggets’ veteran players, Mason Plumlee, was fascinated with Manning’s time as a Volunteer. Plumlee’s uncle, Victor Ashe, was the former Mayor of Knoxville. As a result, Plumlee grew up watching Manning dominate his rivals in the SEC — causing him to become a big fan.

“The message I took away from (meeting Manning) was that they never got too high or too low, but they just stuck with the process of work and really building camaraderie within their program, especially their players,” Plumlee told the Denver Post. “It was neat to hear his standpoint how that develops and what it actually became; which was a couple of Super Bowl wins.”

A multitude of players were ecstatic with the meeting because of how it related to their childhood. They were able to learn valuable insight into the games that they loved to watch as a kid — most of the current Nuggets players watched Manning’s career unfold as a Volunteer and as a Colt. Plumlee recalled that his teammate Gary Davis, who was an Indianapolis native, also grew up a big fan of Manning; needless to say, he had quite a few questions for the Colts Legend.

“(Davis said) ‘Tell us what it was like to win a Super Bowl? What was it like to bring that back to the city of Indianapolis?” Plumlee recalled. “‘What was it like to be on the player’s side of that because he experienced that as a kid…”

“He’s a great storyteller,” concluded Plumlee. “He couldn’t have been a better speaker for us and what we’re going through with really an unprecedented finish to our NBA season.”