Name: Peyton Manning's Greatest Performance Ever | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2026-02-04T16:00:16.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Peyton Manning's Greatest Performance Ever | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-02-04. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Peyton Manning's Greatest Performance Ever | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-02-04. Transcript available.

how you doing thank you doing good you i'm fine thank you thank you
first of all how's your how's your family since since the last time you and i
chatted in a person
you had twins i have how old are they uh three years old now buddy hard to
believe you got your
hands full i do full time full time boy and a girl boy and a girl i'm very
accurate and uh it's uh
it's been the best thing that ever happened to me of course and ashley both and
uh it's changed our
lives and uh and uh it's it keeps things in perspective you know and the
personalities you
have you have two and you think they'd be the same but they're not the same are
they're not
they're not marshall my son he's much like me unfortunately uh got my got my
looks unfortunately
and uh mostly my daughter's just like uh ashley and she's the lucky one so uh
now the uh uh your
family um espn did a did a wonderful i forget the title of the documentary
about the manning dynasty
right uh and and your father talking about you kids and you kids uh relating
stories about your dad when
he was in the nfl and playing football and so forth i found so touching and
just a lovely document of your
lives now do you think your son will come along and continue that wow i don't
know uh if he if he chooses to
only if he wants to i think the best thing that my dad did for me and eli
cooper he never pushed us
into anything i think he encouraged us to play sports it teaches you a lot of
valuable lessons so i
won't push my kids into anything that documentary was great on my dad it could
have been a few less
crying highlights of me
as a uh you know dave everybody says my dad's this great father do you think at
any point when i was
three years old getting kicked in the head by my brother he might have stopped
filming and
maybe gone out there and stopped my brother no no no i gotta get this footage
it should be great for a documentary one day one day yeah so i want to see payton
taking one in the
head from his brother yeah very thanks a lot how are things in denver do you
live in denver now live
in denver we moved from uh indianapolis indianapolis and uh you put indianapolis
uh you found a map and
put indianapolis on the map there was before there wasn't even a map well it's
a um
it's a it's it's a great it's a great city but i believe that you need to live
where you're playing and so 14 years in indy and we're really enjoying denver
it's perfect now you're the kind of uh athlete you've had the kind of career
regardless of what
city you go play people love to see you i mean you don't you don't go to pick a
town of people
you don't get that well i get it sometimes you know when you come here to play
in new york or
certain stadiums they talk about you they talk about your mother you know uh it's
uh it's olivia
by the way not dolores but uh but but the fans are still what the game's about
and uh indianapolis
had great fans denver's got great fans great history there i'm enjoying playing
there yeah
uh if you want to know uh the legacy of uh this gentleman in in my hometown
just uh drive in from
the airport and on the horizon you see something that the egyptians might have
built and it turns
out to be lucas oil stadium it is the it's the single largest man-made
structure ever all thanks to
this man right here thanks thank you thanks and and and beyond that the the
charitable uh contributions
and impact that he and his uh legacy and reputation have left on that city immeasurable
as a wonderful
man we're talking to we'll be right back ladies and gentlemen i would like to
be there are certain guys
that you you you want to look up to and be and i uh i i could have been like
one of you i could have been
a man do you mind when i talk about your surgery i'm fascinated by this uh
because i was never quite
clear everybody said oh it's a neck surgery it's neck surgery it's neck surgery
and you think oh gosh a
football player having neck surgery but that really wasn't what the problem was
was it well my neck
i had a herniated disc you know from my neck and i i had a fusion surgery that
healed that but that disc
dave was pressing on uh a nerve uh and had caused nerve damage in my right arm
because there was not
enough blood flow to that nerve is that what it was that's way too technical
for me i uh uh
just uh all right i went i went to tennessee it's better yeah it's better you
don't know yeah um
but like i said of all places in my right arm uh i was watching this segment
earlier it was too late to
learn to throw uh left-handed my my high school coach used to always tell me
that when you're sprinting
left it'd be easier if you could throw left hand if you were amphibious yeah i
think he meant
ambidextrous he never told me amphibious close enough that too yeah it was too
late for that so
you know obviously i was concerned about whether i could perform or i could
make the throws that i used
to make that was my biggest challenge the question here now is regeneration of
the nerves isn't that right
and and and they do heal but very slowly and and maybe never to 100 are you at
100 now i'm not at
100 compared to what i was before my surgery but i have made strides uh each
season and uh this year
felt a lot better than i did the year before but these nerves just go at their
own pace it's not like
it's going to have this immediate recovery one day i had a lot of people that
told me they had nerve
damage and they said any day you could wake up and that's going to be the day
and you talk about waking
up excited every morning at 7 a.m and then being pretty depressed about noon
every day right right
today's not the day because you're the kind of kid and you talked about your
son and you said he's
like you that when you were three you were probably winging a ball around right
my dad always said that
i could just kind of throw a pass uh sort of natural i could just pick up a
ball and just sort
of throw it and i'd always been able to do that and here i am 35 years old i
couldn't i couldn't pick it
up and throw it like i couldn't even pick it you picked it up but you couldn't
the pain was too
great or they're just weak i kind of it was weak and i i had a i lost my
awareness of my arm and space
kind of the had a proprioception issue so i used to just sit in the mirror and
just sort of go through
my throwing motion trying to get the feel back the way i always thrown before
see that had never
dawned on me that there would be a proprioception factor that's what nerves
that's what nerves can do
as well so you you now don't and this is a sense that helps you locate your
human being in space your
your physiology in space i was throwing to some receivers and i was trying to
throw it to you
and the ball went to you and uh that was that was very scary there's a great
story i hope you're not
tired of telling it uh you were so eager to find out what you had ahead of you
and what you had left and
but you didn't want anybody to see you throwing the ball so you you called your
dad and at first
your dad was reluctant to do this why would he would not want to help out well
uh i'm not sure i
think he was he was concerned about me but i was i was sensitive to how i was
throwing i didn't want
anybody to see it like you said so i only threw with about three people my dad
ashley and my old college
coach three people that have seen me throw and that i could you know trust in
and he kind of give me
some feedback uh and uh but my dad uh he once he saw me throw he was concerned
he could kind of relate
to what i was going through but at the same time gave me great support and
encouragement to keep
at it keep at it and i'm glad that he uh you know the people have supported i've
had a lot of help
through these past couple years your medical team say don't worry this issue of
the nerve regeneration
and the proprioception that's coming back that's coming back don't worry all of
them said the same
thing they said they think it'll come back but they just couldn't guarantee it
and so that's what was
uh concerning and then when you're changing teams you know the denver broncos
sign you dave you want
to be the player that they think that they're getting and so uh it really made
me work even harder
now i think you you've you've said that you're not the same player you were
with the indianapolis colts
but my god uh the the year you had last year was uh unprecedented so how do
these things reconcile
i guess i would equate it to a to a pitcher maybe i can't throw the hundred
mile an hour fastball
anymore but i can still strike you out by picking my spots and working the
plate so i don't make the
same type of throws that i used to uh used to make but i try to use the
cerebral part and um uh use my
experience i can still move the chains down the field and get us into the end
zone so here's the
difference uh when i see a team when you get to punt and oh look they're
starting out on their 18 yard
line and i think holy crap they're on their 18 yard line now what are they
going to do but you got to
think in terms of let's just get it down another down first down first down
first down right you think
you're just taking smaller bites that's right you know there's this great old nfl
films clip of hank
strand telling his quarterback just keep matriculating down the field and uh
that's kind of what uh that's
what i that's what i try to do now just keep working it down the field
eventually you can get into the end
zone and help your team win everybody last year for the super bowl thought oh
this is what a what a
story peyton manning comes in has an unbelievable uh year and they go to the
super bowl and then he will
retire but that never entered your mind did it well i have been rejuvenated dave
these past two years
after sitting a year out um not by choice you know by injury uh when you get
back out there boy i've just
been so grateful yeah to be back out there with my teammates uh putting in the
hard work
um and so i'm still enjoy what i'm doing i enjoy the preparation part and i
still think i can help
a team now if the broncos say hey we don't we don't need you anymore that'll
probably be the end of
it and as soon as i don't feel like i can do the same things that i've been
doing that's when i'll
stop playing but what's john elway a nice guy yeah great guy yeah and and and i
thought well this is
why you ended up in denver because of john elway am i close to something there
well john's a very
competitive guy that played at my age uh that knows what a quarterback my age
kind of needs around
him to be successful that had a that was a big reasoning in it and uh and he
wants to win now
and he's not building for five years from now yeah and then so we're all
gathered around uh the
television uh on super sunday forgive the expression right and uh the first
possession for the denver
broncos and uh as i said to my son oh it looks like i snapped the ball yeah not
the way uh not the way
you want to start uh start a game but then we all thought oh this will be a
great story after the
game oh how about that first snap yeah but then nightmare of nightmares it
seems like it just kept
getting worse yeah now from quarterback to quarterback did uh like i can tell
on any given day
the things on the show are going to be okay some days i know they're not going
to be okay at any given
moment during your preparation for the for the super bowl did you have a
feeling things might not be okay
no certainly didn't see it going that way we were excited uh going into the
game and had a great week
of preparation which is always going to be a challenge with all the
distractions of a super bowl week and
it just didn't go our way seattle played a lot better than we did and they were
the better team
that night and they deserved to win so a tough pill to swallow one you got to
learn from and i think
we can be better for it uh this season boy i see this is uh yeah but what a
team what a team you had
so so now after the ball uh goes over your head and into the end zone and you're
back on the sideline
who do you talk to who do you turn to what what is that conversation where do
you go at that point
well you try to my dad always used to say after a bad play you got to get back
to zero you got to get
back to kind of level zero and it's not the way you want to start but still it
was just
five to nothing at that point so by no means you know the game is still just
starting but we just
couldn't get a whole lot going uh a lot of mistakes in in moments of trouble in
my life i always like to
have somebody to blame now you know it's just it makes me feel better so did
you talk to the center did
you talk to the the line it was it was not the center's fault yeah it was a uh
really the crowd you
know caused um a snap count issue and uh that's really what that's what
happened uh was new york
a good place for a super bowl yeah i think it was fine yeah yeah good place
yeah and the omaha uh are we
now people tell me that other teams use the word omaha yeah omaha is kind of
out there
these tv mics just pick up everything yeah the big parabolic sideline dishes i
don't i don't like
it i'm not a fan of it dave because it reveals you know terminology that the
other opponent you're
going to play the next week can use right and i don't like bill belichick
hearing yeah our plays
that we're using i think i know how to fix it dave i think you got to get up
there and just say some
really negative things about the commissioner roger goodell you know just you
know blue 20
blue 20 roger goodell's a no good you know what you know and i think they'll
just kind of turn that
volume down a little bit but uh but as we know about bill belichick he brings
his own microphone so you
don't don't have to worry about that um but uh a lot of people come to me and
they say dave what is
peyton doing and nobody nobody did this in the league before nobody knows how
to work the play
clock the way you do and it's breathtaking to see it just almost begin to flash
zero and the play is
launched yeah it's a remarkable uh dance if you'll excuse the expression that
you do there uh behind
the center and they see what is he doing and i say he's he's doing absolutely
nothing he just wants
people to think oh my god oh my god how complicated can this play be geez
absolutely look out god what
is he gonna do just make just make yourself seem a lot smarter than you are uh
uh i can hear the fans
dave i can hear the fans going just snap the ball yes but the the thing that i
never realized was by
working that the play clock you are uh maintaining possession you're eating up
time you're killing
the clock and you're actually playing your game and letting everybody just kind
of sit back and
and watch that's right i'm learning a lot about the defense hey how's your
brother eli he don't come
by no more i will i will tell him i will tell him he's got a ankle surgery yeah
yeah but he's doing
good i saw him yesterday he's going to start throwing some this week and be
able to participate in
uh some of these off-season practices and uh he's good he's you know who else i
met was that andrew luck
now he seemed like a nice kid he's a great kid great quarterback too yep yep he
can't read
they don't i think they i think they they don't teach that at stanford you don't
think
just tennessee and ball state that's right ball state hey let me i want to show
this picture this
is a good picture right here this is you and your buddy uh derek jeter yeah you
went out to the
stadium and saw him yeah well
derek uh derek and i have been kind of professional athletes the same time he's
retiring when i wanted to come out and see him play for the last time here you
might be yep following
derek and i will be spending a lot of time together like this i just uh but but
i do i will tell you
today this is the only show i've ever done i appreciate that he this man and
his family have
done so much for me for indianapolis and for our little nickel and dime pony
and dog show i'll never
ever be able to ever be able to repay him we're going to go outside here in a
minute all right
so the cabs are going to come by this is the quarterback challenge okay this
man has done it
before all right roll them and they're going to blow by actual new york city
cabs here we go oh my god
i was afraid to throw jeez all right are they coming stand back oh now he's
slowed down
going to be a little bit of a little bird oh let me try one more that was
beautiful that was lovely
gives me hope it gives you hope it gives you hope here we go it's all in the
timing
oh oh my god you are a genius my friend hey manning ladies and gentlemen thanks
from your
denver broncos god bless you sir have a great year thank you for being here we'll
be right oh we're
done that's it good night everybody thank you

Peyton Manning's Greatest Performance Ever | David Letterman

how you doing thank you doing good you i'm fine thank you thank you
first of all how's your how's your family since since the last time you and i
chatted in a person
you had twins i have how old are they uh three years old now buddy hard to
believe you got your
hands full i do full time full time boy and a girl boy and a girl i'm very
accurate and uh it's uh
it's been the best thing that ever happened to me of course and ashley both and
uh it's changed our
lives and uh and uh it's it keeps things in perspective you know and the
personalities you
have you have two and you think they'd be the same but they're not the same are
they're not
they're not marshall my son he's much like me unfortunately uh got my got my
looks unfortunately
and uh mostly my daughter's just like uh ashley and she's the lucky one so uh
now the uh uh your
family um espn did a did a wonderful i forget the title of the documentary
about the manning dynasty
right uh and and your father talking about you kids and you kids uh relating
stories about your dad when
he was in the nfl and playing football and so forth i found so touching and
just a lovely document of your
lives now do you think your son will come along and continue that wow i don't
know uh if he if he chooses to
only if he wants to i think the best thing that my dad did for me and eli
cooper he never pushed us
into anything i think he encouraged us to play sports it teaches you a lot of
valuable lessons so i
won't push my kids into anything that documentary was great on my dad it could
have been a few less
crying highlights of me
as a uh you know dave everybody says my dad's this great father do you think at
any point when i was
three years old getting kicked in the head by my brother he might have stopped
filming and
maybe gone out there and stopped my brother no no no i gotta get this footage
it should be great for a documentary one day one day yeah so i want to see payton
taking one in the
head from his brother yeah very thanks a lot how are things in denver do you
live in denver now live
in denver we moved from uh indianapolis indianapolis and uh you put indianapolis
uh you found a map and
put indianapolis on the map there was before there wasn't even a map well it's
a um
it's a it's it's a great it's a great city but i believe that you need to live
where you're playing and so 14 years in indy and we're really enjoying denver
it's perfect now you're the kind of uh athlete you've had the kind of career
regardless of what
city you go play people love to see you i mean you don't you don't go to pick a
town of people
you don't get that well i get it sometimes you know when you come here to play
in new york or
certain stadiums they talk about you they talk about your mother you know uh it's
uh it's olivia
by the way not dolores but uh but but the fans are still what the game's about
and uh indianapolis
had great fans denver's got great fans great history there i'm enjoying playing
there yeah
uh if you want to know uh the legacy of uh this gentleman in in my hometown
just uh drive in from
the airport and on the horizon you see something that the egyptians might have
built and it turns
out to be lucas oil stadium it is the it's the single largest man-made
structure ever all thanks to
this man right here thanks thank you thanks and and and beyond that the the
charitable uh contributions
and impact that he and his uh legacy and reputation have left on that city immeasurable
as a wonderful
man we're talking to we'll be right back ladies and gentlemen i would like to
be there are certain guys
that you you you want to look up to and be and i uh i i could have been like
one of you i could have been
a man do you mind when i talk about your surgery i'm fascinated by this uh
because i was never quite
clear everybody said oh it's a neck surgery it's neck surgery it's neck surgery
and you think oh gosh a
football player having neck surgery but that really wasn't what the problem was
was it well my neck
i had a herniated disc you know from my neck and i i had a fusion surgery that
healed that but that disc
dave was pressing on uh a nerve uh and had caused nerve damage in my right arm
because there was not
enough blood flow to that nerve is that what it was that's way too technical
for me i uh uh
just uh all right i went i went to tennessee it's better yeah it's better you
don't know yeah um
but like i said of all places in my right arm uh i was watching this segment
earlier it was too late to
learn to throw uh left-handed my my high school coach used to always tell me
that when you're sprinting
left it'd be easier if you could throw left hand if you were amphibious yeah i
think he meant
ambidextrous he never told me amphibious close enough that too yeah it was too
late for that so
you know obviously i was concerned about whether i could perform or i could
make the throws that i used
to make that was my biggest challenge the question here now is regeneration of
the nerves isn't that right
and and and they do heal but very slowly and and maybe never to 100 are you at
100 now i'm not at
100 compared to what i was before my surgery but i have made strides uh each
season and uh this year
felt a lot better than i did the year before but these nerves just go at their
own pace it's not like
it's going to have this immediate recovery one day i had a lot of people that
told me they had nerve
damage and they said any day you could wake up and that's going to be the day
and you talk about waking
up excited every morning at 7 a.m and then being pretty depressed about noon
every day right right
today's not the day because you're the kind of kid and you talked about your
son and you said he's
like you that when you were three you were probably winging a ball around right
my dad always said that
i could just kind of throw a pass uh sort of natural i could just pick up a
ball and just sort
of throw it and i'd always been able to do that and here i am 35 years old i
couldn't i couldn't pick it
up and throw it like i couldn't even pick it you picked it up but you couldn't
the pain was too
great or they're just weak i kind of it was weak and i i had a i lost my
awareness of my arm and space
kind of the had a proprioception issue so i used to just sit in the mirror and
just sort of go through
my throwing motion trying to get the feel back the way i always thrown before
see that had never
dawned on me that there would be a proprioception factor that's what nerves
that's what nerves can do
as well so you you now don't and this is a sense that helps you locate your
human being in space your
your physiology in space i was throwing to some receivers and i was trying to
throw it to you
and the ball went to you and uh that was that was very scary there's a great
story i hope you're not
tired of telling it uh you were so eager to find out what you had ahead of you
and what you had left and
but you didn't want anybody to see you throwing the ball so you you called your
dad and at first
your dad was reluctant to do this why would he would not want to help out well
uh i'm not sure i
think he was he was concerned about me but i was i was sensitive to how i was
throwing i didn't want
anybody to see it like you said so i only threw with about three people my dad
ashley and my old college
coach three people that have seen me throw and that i could you know trust in
and he kind of give me
some feedback uh and uh but my dad uh he once he saw me throw he was concerned
he could kind of relate
to what i was going through but at the same time gave me great support and
encouragement to keep
at it keep at it and i'm glad that he uh you know the people have supported i've
had a lot of help
through these past couple years your medical team say don't worry this issue of
the nerve regeneration
and the proprioception that's coming back that's coming back don't worry all of
them said the same
thing they said they think it'll come back but they just couldn't guarantee it
and so that's what was
uh concerning and then when you're changing teams you know the denver broncos
sign you dave you want
to be the player that they think that they're getting and so uh it really made
me work even harder
now i think you you've you've said that you're not the same player you were
with the indianapolis colts
but my god uh the the year you had last year was uh unprecedented so how do
these things reconcile
i guess i would equate it to a to a pitcher maybe i can't throw the hundred
mile an hour fastball
anymore but i can still strike you out by picking my spots and working the
plate so i don't make the
same type of throws that i used to uh used to make but i try to use the
cerebral part and um uh use my
experience i can still move the chains down the field and get us into the end
zone so here's the
difference uh when i see a team when you get to punt and oh look they're
starting out on their 18 yard
line and i think holy crap they're on their 18 yard line now what are they
going to do but you got to
think in terms of let's just get it down another down first down first down
first down right you think
you're just taking smaller bites that's right you know there's this great old nfl
films clip of hank
strand telling his quarterback just keep matriculating down the field and uh
that's kind of what uh that's
what i that's what i try to do now just keep working it down the field
eventually you can get into the end
zone and help your team win everybody last year for the super bowl thought oh
this is what a what a
story peyton manning comes in has an unbelievable uh year and they go to the
super bowl and then he will
retire but that never entered your mind did it well i have been rejuvenated dave
these past two years
after sitting a year out um not by choice you know by injury uh when you get
back out there boy i've just
been so grateful yeah to be back out there with my teammates uh putting in the
hard work
um and so i'm still enjoy what i'm doing i enjoy the preparation part and i
still think i can help
a team now if the broncos say hey we don't we don't need you anymore that'll
probably be the end of
it and as soon as i don't feel like i can do the same things that i've been
doing that's when i'll
stop playing but what's john elway a nice guy yeah great guy yeah and and and i
thought well this is
why you ended up in denver because of john elway am i close to something there
well john's a very
competitive guy that played at my age uh that knows what a quarterback my age
kind of needs around
him to be successful that had a that was a big reasoning in it and uh and he
wants to win now
and he's not building for five years from now yeah and then so we're all
gathered around uh the
television uh on super sunday forgive the expression right and uh the first
possession for the denver
broncos and uh as i said to my son oh it looks like i snapped the ball yeah not
the way uh not the way
you want to start uh start a game but then we all thought oh this will be a
great story after the
game oh how about that first snap yeah but then nightmare of nightmares it
seems like it just kept
getting worse yeah now from quarterback to quarterback did uh like i can tell
on any given day
the things on the show are going to be okay some days i know they're not going
to be okay at any given
moment during your preparation for the for the super bowl did you have a
feeling things might not be okay
no certainly didn't see it going that way we were excited uh going into the
game and had a great week
of preparation which is always going to be a challenge with all the
distractions of a super bowl week and
it just didn't go our way seattle played a lot better than we did and they were
the better team
that night and they deserved to win so a tough pill to swallow one you got to
learn from and i think
we can be better for it uh this season boy i see this is uh yeah but what a
team what a team you had
so so now after the ball uh goes over your head and into the end z