Quarterback for the Colts, Peyton Manning.Wikicommons
Peyton Manning, Super Bowl winning quarterback and three time NFL MVP, revealed when he was the Indianapolis Colts quarterback what makes him one of the greatest gunslingers to ever grace gridiron: the use of Gaelic!
Manning mesmerizes his opponents by calling plays in Irish at the line of scrimmage that only he and his offense can understand. Well, sort of.
Now, while he may not have been 100 percent serious in this video (see link above), Manning can be heard rattling off what appears to be his version of one, two, three (a haon, a do, a tri) in Gaelic.
Even center Jeff Saturday was a bit perplexed by Peyton’s grasp of Gaelic.
“I mean we all speak regular Gaelic, but Peyton is into his own thing, you know, it takes me forever to translate it.”
When asked how he picked up the little used language - shame on all of us who do not use it - he gave props to his brother.
“My brother Cooper is the one who taught me Gaelic, he's really into it, he has got personalized license plates,” says Manning.
When asked if his brother had plates that said “Mr. Gaelic,” Manning asked the interviewer to stop making fun of his brother!
The Colts crack a few more jokes in the piece, which is linked above, and show that a happy team off the field is a winning one on it.
The Colts took care of the New York Jets in the AFC Championship game Sunday, during which Manning methodically let his team through an early storm to a 30-17 victory.
The omens are good for Manning, who incidentally got married on St. Patrick's Day, as this year's Super Bowl is being in the same stadium where he won his only championship ring in 2006 when his team beat the Chicago Bears 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI.