Peyton Manning has a bone to pick with the Denver Broncos’ scoreboard operator.
With the Broncos leading 35-21 late in the fourth quarter, Manning was visibly frustrated after his many attempts to quiet the crowd failed, resulting in a false start by one of his offensive lineman just before the two-minute warning.
But Manning wasn’t upset with the crowd at Sports Authority Field at Mile High; he was upset at the scoreboard operator for encouraging the Denver faithful to cheer louder.
“I have no problem with our fans, our fans are great. I have a problem with our scoreboard operator,” Manning said. “I’m going to have to have a little talk with him. I’m not sure what he’s doing. He was playing music and showing people, players dancing and getting the crowd fired up and we have the ball — I don’t think we should be doing that.”
The media laughed at Manning’s answer, but he certainly did not appear to be joking. The Denver QB added that he thought it was “disrespectful” they showed San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers on the big screen in the fourth quarter, alternating shots of the two signal callers on their respective sidelines as the crowd alternated between boos and cheers.
“I don’t think we should be showing their quarterback on the sideline. I thought that was kind of disrespectful,” Manning said. “Our fans are great, our fans are loud. (But) our scoreboard operator, it wasn’t his best night.”
For Rivers’ part, he wasn’t bothered at all by the screen time, as he was actually quite flattered by the attention.
“I really don’t know how to respond to that,” Rivers said per Pro Football Talk, “other than if you had told me when I was 10 years old they would show me in front of 75,000 people and I’d get booed and Peyton Manning in the same clip and get cheered, I’d say that’s pretty awesome.”
