Peyton Manning Denies Claim In Court Filings That Peyton Manning Was Source For Peyton Manning PED Allegations

Unsealed court papers claim Peyton Manning’s lawyers “confirmed much of what” a source told Al Jazeera about the retired NFL quarterback’s alleged PED usage along with that of MLBers Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard, who are suing the network over claims made in the 2015 report.

The Hollywood Reporter got its hands on the docs today, after which a Manning spokesperson released the following denial:

Al Jazeera’s self-serving claim that Peyton Manning’s attorneys ‘confirmed’ Al Jazeera’s allegations about Peyton Manning is absolutely false. In fact, information was provided to Al Jazeera that confirmed the Al Jazeera allegations about Peyton Manning were unfounded. In addition, the sole source for Al Jazeera’s allegations has publicly recanted them. Moreover, the NFL conducted an extensive investigation of the claims raised in Al Jazeera’s programs and found no evidence to support them. This is a desperate move by Al Jazeera to distract the courts from its own wrongdoing.

The details of how and why this is going down are incredibly boring, but it’s all related to Zimmerman’s and Howard’s defamation suit against the network. (Manning is not a party to that suit, and while he had threatened to also sue for defamation, he has not.) We’ve embedded some of the documents below.

The most relevant portion of the filing, for our purposes, is here. Recall that Charlie Sly is the pharmacist caught on hidden camera stating he had facilitated the distribution of banned substances to numerous professional athletes:

This is part of a filing by Al Jazeera to draw the line on what information Zimmerman’s lawyers can demand the company hand over about its investigation. (Boy, we’d love to know what’s behind that redaction.)

Sly, of course, issued a bizarre recantation of his claims while his family experienced a visit from Manning’s hired goons, sparking a 911 call.

Anyway, here are some documents for you to read through. It’s fun, if you’re into this sort of thing.