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The latest wave of #MeToo, while it’s good for Hollywood and the media to finally clean house, has also led to some rather specious claims–bordering on ridiculous. Like the women who claimed 93-year-old former President George H.W. Bush groped them. This led Stephen Colbert to remark, “Who’s next? Colonel Sanders? Papa Smurf? Air Bud?” No, but a 21-year claim a woman has had against retired NFL star Peyton Manning is back in the news.
Jamie Naughtright is hardly coming out with this for the first time. In fact, in 2003, Naughtright sued Manning for defamation. Manning, under oath, on the stand, said that he was simply mooning a teammate in the training room while Naughtright examined his foot. It’s a classic he-said-she-said situation, and over the years, her claim has had no effect on the quarterback’s career.
Manning was 19 at the time she said the incident occurred, a quarterback at the University of Tennessee. Naughtright got a $300,000 settlement from UT after she left her job there, and also settled with Manning after the defamation lawsuit arising from his autobiography written with his famous father, Archie Manning. Now she claims Manning had “predator eyes” in her encounter over two decades ago, and bewails all the horrible things that have happened to her since that 1996 day in the training room.
I’m sorry, but sometimes the trope is carried too far. Sometimes a wave of righteous behavior sweeps some trash up in its foam. In this particular case, Naughtright has had her claims litigated not once, but twice. Once in a court of law with the accused under oath on the stand. If Manning was lying, that means he perjured himself. This isn’t like Bill O’Reilly, who paid $45 million (or more) to clear multiple sexual harassment claims, or Harvey Weinstein, who was such an inveterate serial abuser that he had a section about it drafted into his employment contract.
The Takeaway
Whatever happened 21 years ago in that Tennessee locker room is long ago and put to bed–fully litigated. If there are a bevy of women who want to stand up and claim one of the most-loved quarterbacks in NFL history abused them, then let them come, and we will see Manning’s career go where O’Reilly’s, Halperin’s, Weinstein’s, and now Spacey’s has gone.
Sometimes, we need to pull back a little and realize certain people will never give up on their quest to prove themselves right, no matter how many times they have to tell the same story over and over again. There are far worse people–in how they treat women–in football, some of them playing right now (Ben Roethlisberger, Ahmad Brooks, C.J. Spillman, Jordan Hicks, Ray McDonald, Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones, Adrian Peterson, Brandon Marshall, and Johnny Manziel anyone?). Shall we focus on the worst offenders, and give up on lone avengers trying to prove a decades-old claim, finally getting her day on TV?
There Are 44 NFL Players Who Have Been Accused of Sexual or Physical Assault
According to the NFL’s own Personal Conduct Policy, “it is not enough simply to avoid being found guilty of a crime. We are all held to a higher standard and must conduct ourselves in a way that is responsible, promotes the values of the NFL, and is lawful.” Therefore, in Broadly’s NFL Report, we’ve included incidents prior to players being drafted into the league, cases in which charges have been dropped, and those concerning a broader range of troubling behaviors toward women, in order to provide readers with all of the information necessary to decide if the NFL is living up to its own, self-imposed higher standards of conduct.
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The NFL has “higher standards of conduct”. Really? They are really going to go with that?