Manning’s name in Tennessee sexual assault suit – tap those hero-worship brakes

We are three days into the social media firestorm set off against former Vol Peyton Manning and all of the controversy stemming from a 1996 incident involving a former UT staffer. According to ESPN, the lawsuit names 10 former Tennessee players in total, including Manning and former football players A.J. Johnson and Michael Williams.

Highlighted in a lawsuit against the University of Tennessee for fostering a “hostile sexual environment” is a sexual assault complaint against Peyton Manning.

Per the document, which was drafted by Naughright’s lawyer, when Naughright was examining Manning’s foot for a potential stress fracture, he allegedly “forcefully maneuvered his naked testicles and rectum directly on her head”.

Naughright, who did not reply to ABC News, filed a defamation suit against Manning, his father Archie, the book’s ghostwriter, John Underwood, and publisher, Harper Collins. Manning claimed he was “mooning” a teammate at the time.

Manning settled the lawsuit in 2003.

Another player, Malcolm Saxon, who was present and witnessed the incident, lost his eligibility, because he did not conform and go along with an altered version of the incident put forward by Naughright’s boss, Mike Rollo, and Manning. He said Naughright “had a vulgar mouth”, and that allowing women in the locker room was “one of the most misbegotten concessions to equal rights ever made”.

She lives in Lakeland and has since 1998, after leaving the University of Tennessee to take a job at Florida Southern.

This does not come as the best publicity for Peyton Manning at all.

“In fact, there is no explicit reference to any physical contact by Manning on Naughright. But this is a document that was an advocacy document, allegations, if you will, that were made by the person’s lawyer years ago about an incident that took place 20 years ago and has now surfaced obviously at the behest of that lawyer or his client when Peyton is in the news and arguably receiving lots and lots of positive press”.

“I am here to reveal and explain how Peyton unfairly benefits from a system only available to him and his white peers”, King wrote on his Facebook page. Still, Naughright hit the University with a suit in 1997, which was later settled.

This course of action broke the confidentiality agreement and threw Naughright’s involvement back into the public eye (namely with her new employer), leading to her filing a defamation lawsuit against Manning. Instead of airing out the issues that may have existed, they went full “politics of personal destruction” on Dr. Naughright’s character and credibility.

The statutes of limitation have expired and reaching a settlement is not an admission of guilt.

If the competitive Manning does want to play, however, the reality is he will have to find another city because if push comes to shove, Elway will certainly not hesitate to pull the trigger and do the dirty work, making the tough decision to tip his cap to the soon-to-be, 40-year-old and send him off to free agency.

The future of the team starting in 2016 is Osweiler, the team’s second-round pick in 2012 who showed plenty of promise last season while going 5-2 as the team’s starter as Manning dealt with a painful plantar fascia injury, and the semantics of talking turkey and actually hammering out a deal in advance of free agency is just that.