The new Bruce Arians book contains dozens of amusing stories from a lifetime in football, including several about former Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. I’ll defer most of them to the actual book itself (after all, he wrote it for you to buy, not for me to summarize it here), but here’s one I couldn’t resist passing along.
When it comes to quarterbacks who are practical jokers, most of the stories we’ve heard over the years relate to guys like Brett Favre and Tom Brady. Manning apparently was a master, too.
“When Steve Walsh was his backup in 1999,” Arians writes, “Steve brushed his teeth like ten times a day. So one day Peyton bought a toothbrush that looked just like Steve’s. He then took a dump in the toilet, threw the toothbrush in there, and snapped a Polaroid of it.
“At lunch that afternoon he asked Steve if he had brushed his teeth that day. Steve said he had. Peyton slid the photo over to him, and Steve almost started throwing up.”
The Quarterback Whisperer will be released officially on Tuesday. It doesn’t come with a free toothbrush, but maybe it should.