Were ESPN Anchors Initially Told Not To Report On Peyton Manning Story?

The more ugly news that comes out regarding Manning will certainly have an impact on his many endorsement deals.

A lawsuit filed last Tuesday on behalf of six women paints a scary picture of administrative policies and procedures biased in favor of Tennessee athletes accused of sexual assault, and the examples given are far more recent than Manning’s days as a Volunteer.

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”. As King points out in the Daily News, Manning’s teammate Malcolm Saxon witnessed the incident and was the individual Manning claimed to be mooning. Terms of the settlement are confidential and have not been made public (Naughright separately settled a lawsuit against the University of Tennessee for a reported amount of $300,000 plus various athletic paraphernalia, including a 1996 Citrus Bowl Watch and a 1991 NCAA championship ring).

“Thirteen years ago, USA Today obtained 74 pages of explosive court documents on Peyton Manning, Archie Manning, the University of Tennessee, and Florida Southern College that revealed allegations of a sexual assault scandal, cover up, and smear campaign of the victim that was so deep, so widespread and so ugly that it would’ve rocked the American sports world to its core”, he wrote. Manning, who was one of many players cited in the report, strongly denied the allegations in the report, saying in a statement, “Whoever said this is making stuff up”.

The entire timeline of events is complex and involves a detailed string of lawsuits and courtroom discussions following the alleged incident (SI.com has a detailed breakdown here).

Naughright was clearly offended by all of this, which led to the defamation lawsuit, and again, if Manning doesn’t mention her in the book, then there’s no defamation lawsuit.

ESPN since has reported on the Manning-Daily News story, so perhaps everyone was (and is) up in arms over nothing.

CBS News reached out to Manning and his family, the University of Tennessee, as well as the athletic trainer who made the original allegations, but no one has responded.

The 39-year-old veteran beat out a young quarterback, Cam Newton, and a team that went near undefeated in the regular season, the Carolina Panthers. This other legal action was also settled out of court.

The case revolves around allegations brought by Dr. Jamie Naughright. “Ah, she, toilet mouth, ah Peyton told me he never did like her, but he always did, cause what I’d told him to do, ah, I instructed him to be nice to the tr- … don’t ever look down on a trainer or an equipment person you know'”.

By all accounts, after she left Tennessee, Naughright moved on with life, forged a successful career in sports medicine and found a way to live with whatever happened in Knoxville.

In the book, Peyton adds that he thought Naughright would find the incident humorous, given “the environment” they were in.

The story sounds familiar because we’ve heard similar charges way too often in the last few years. People that defend Manning sit back and say “Who cares?” and they talk about how long ago this was. She immediately filed a complaint with the university.