Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians came out in strong defense of Peyton Manning today regarding the quarterback’s alleged sexual assault case from 1996.
Speaking with media, via Bob Glauber of New York’s Newsday, he expressed frustration what the media has done to Manning’s image, saying “If we’re all going to get nitpicked for what we did in college, we’re all in trouble.”
Arians also intimated this would be a non-story if Manning hadn’t won his second Super Bowl ring and was at the tail end of his career. He said, “This was a bigger story because of who he is and what he just did, not what happened back then,” per Glauber.
Dr. Jamie Naughright alleges Manning sexually assaulted her when she was a trainer at Tennessee in 1996. Initially, Manning denied it ever happened, and he later said he was mooning a teammate instead of intentionally targeting Naughright.
It’s worth noting that Manning never faced charges and that Naughright later settled with the University of Tennessee.
Many feel, as Arians does, that Manning’s actions were just dumb, rather than abominably criminal. College kids do pretty dumb stuff sometimes, and the locker room, “boys will be boys” culture was much more entrenched back in the mid-1990s than what we see now in our era.
Therefore it’s not surprising to see an old-school guy like Arians come to Manning’s defense.
On the other side of the argument, though, would be the point that perhaps that’s exactly the battleground in which this fight is being waged. The NFL is still a good old boy’s network with many old-school guys in control of key positions of power, and it’s proving difficult to sway this group on many social issues.
Whichever side of the fence you find yourself on, I think we can all somewhat agree with Arians’ point about “we’re all in trouble” if we had our personal lives from our college years laid out for the world to see.