NBA legend shockingly claims NFL HoFer Peyton Manning would have been a bust if he played in the modern era
Peyton Manning is a Hall of Famer and a two-time Super Bowl champion. Many consider him to be the best quarterback to ever play, even over Tom Brady. However, on the Let's Go! podcast, NBA legend Charles Barkley said otherwise. He believes the former Indianapolis Colts star wouldn't have made it in today's game.
Barkley also lamented the power that sports talk shows have, saying they can impact a player and a team:
"...Morning talk shows. I'm not sure how good they are. I'm not sure how good they are for sports today. Because now, man, these guys have so much power. And like when they fit when they start a subject first thing in the morning it becomes everybody's got to talk about it throughout the day."
He believes these talk shows would have come for Manning and other players who didn't win all that often in their first few years:
"You know, you look at a guy like Troy Aikman, you look at a guy like Peyton Manning. If those guys started, I think those guys won like one or two games their first year. In today's game, they gonna be killed, they gonna be bust, you don't get no time, you'll get no time to like, 'Oh, I gotta play, he's a rookie.'"
Peyton Manning blasted into form and became a Hall of Famer, but he threw a league-high 28 interceptions and lost 13 games in his rookie season.
Charles Barkley's thoughts on talk shows and how they would have hurt players like Peyton Manning
Barkley said more on the subject, adding that the internet doesn't help anyone in sports:
"But now because the way talk shows have worked and the Internet, if you get off to a bad start, you don't get like... I mean, this boy in New York [Zach Wilson], somebody's got to get to him. Because like man, you can't say the stuff you said after the game, because that's off all your teammates."
He believes talk shows haven't been good for young quarterbacks like Zach Wilson:
"But also you got to have some awareness and responsibility... We had two yards in the second half. That's impossible for me to have. Like, I'm the quarterback of the New York Jets. I can't have two yards, and then come out to game and said, 'No, I don't owe the defense anything.' But yeah, absolutely. You do."
Wilson has struggled since coming into the NFL. With every talk show wondering if he should have a job, Barkley thinks that would have happened to Manning and others.
If you use any of the above quotes, please credit the Let's Go! podcast and H/T Sportskeeda.