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Peyton Manning has just one request for the crop of recently drafted quarterbacks. He wants them to surpass his worst record.
The former Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos quarterback spoke about the rookie class, featuring a record-tying six first-round quarterbacks, while accepting the Mizel Institute 2024 Community Enrichment Award on Wednesday.
Jokingly (we think), he said he hopes one of them breaks his NFL record of 28 interceptions as a rookie, though he’d prefer it wasn’t the Broncos’ Bo Nix.
Peyton Manning brings up his NFL rookie-interception record: “I mean, if any one of these rookies wanted to break my interception record, I’d be for it. I don’t want Bo (Nix) to break it, but I’d like to get that one off my resume. You’d think with 17 games …” pic.twitter.com/wDLJLMTSLx
— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) May 23, 2024
Manning’s comment:
“I played as a rookie. That was not a fun year. It was well-documented how many interceptions that I threw. If any one of these rookies wanted to break my interception record, I’d be for it. I don’t want Bo [Nix] to break it, but I’d like to get that one off my resume. You’d think with 17 games, they’d be able to do it. It’s 28. It shouldn’t be that hard. But anyway, I’m over it.”
Manning isn’t wrong that the new 17-game season should help his cause, though he would still need a massive outlier season to erase him from the bad side of the record books. The rookies to come closest since Manning’s first year with the Colts are DeShone Kizer with 22, Geno Smith with 21 and Mark Sanchez and Matthew Stafford with 20.
The context of Manning’s joke was the importance of playing time for rookies. He is firmly in the camp that rookies learn more from playing than sitting behind a veteran:
“I do think experience is still your best teacher. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I went 3-13 my rookie year and didn’t play very well. We went 13-3 the next year. There’s no way that would have happened had I not played and gone through those struggles and thrown those interceptions and figured out ‘OK, I can’t do that anymore, these guys are fast.’ You file it all away.
That’s rather convenient.