Peyton Manning Sold His Stake In All 31 Of His Papa John's Restaurants 2 Days Before The NFL Ended Its Partnership With The Company

Clem3/07/2018 6:50 PM

WaPo- Peyton Manning is a pizza purveyor no more. The former NFL quarterback sold his stake in 31 Denver-area Papa John’s locations two days before the NFL and the pizza chain ended their sponsorship agreement late last month. Manning, who spent four years playing for the Broncos before retiring after the 2015 season, bought the stores in 2012 as part of a six-year joint venture with Papa John’s International, Papa John’s spokesman Peter Collins told Denver’s Fox affiliate.

Wow, some guys just have all the luck, huh? If I knew anything about insider trading, I would say this was insider trading. Luckily I don’t know anything about insider trading and actually accusing someone of such a thing is probably very wrong and illegal, so this is DEFINITELY NOT INSIDER TRADING. If we are being honest, Peyton Manning has been the Teflon Don of Football anyway. It doesn’t matter if he was in a locker room at Tennessee or his wife was allegedly getting shipments of Smitty Juice to their Colorado home. Shit, I don’t think Peyton Manning ever actually got sacked in his career. He just slid down whenever he saw danger and always came out of it okay on the other side like Forrest Gump. Between the accent and the shape of his head, Peyton always reminded me of Forrest Gump. And selling all of his Papa John’s stores right before the company broke up with the biggest sports league in America is just like Forrest and Lieutenant Dan surviving the storm from hell only to become the only shrimping boat in town.

I mean I know Papa John’s has made bank for years despite the fact the product they sold was Papa John’s pizza. But they also had an ad during every commercial break of every NFL game for God knows how long. If you are selling your 31 pizza stores in a state that has legalized weed, the projections must have looked like Bitcoin’s performance once everyone in the Barstool office hopped on board the hype train.

But my favorite part of all of this is the conversations Peyton must have had with Papa John. I just think of Peyton screeeeeeeeaming at Papa for fucking up the NFL marriage like Papa John was Austin Collie after dropping a wide open third down pass. Peyton obviously has an indent on his forehead during the argument despite not wearing a helmet for years and he addresses Papa John as “Papa” the entire time. Nothing beats a good Peyton Manning tantrum. I imagine this tiff was like the Jeff Saturday shouting match.

But I suppose it could have been like the Mike Vanderjagt slow boil.

Or actually, since Papa was always the beta in the commercials, I wouldn’t be shocked if it ended up more like the Peyton vs. Donald Brown beatdown.

Anyway, during the bad times, I find it’s always best to remember the good times.