Peyton Manning discussed halftime adjustments on Monday night during the Manningcast broadcast of the game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Dallas went into the locker room up, 18-0. Manning built a Hall of Fame career on his unbelievable football IQ that could decipher and counter any defense. He was a master manipulator at the line of scrimmage, so much so that he made “Omaha” the most famous football audible known to man.
Surely, he would have some insightful commentary on how the Bucs could adjust at halftime after their season-long struggles on third down and in the running game. Well, according to Manning, halftime is more about bathroom breaks than adjustments to what the other team is doing on defense.
“I don’t know if I ever made a halftime adjustment in my entire 18-year career. I think that’s the biggest myth in football- the halftime adjustments. You go in, you use the restroom, you eat a couple of oranges, and then the head coach says, ‘Alright, let’s go!'”- Peyton Manning pic.twitter.com/j17FWpXChq
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 17, 2023
In practice, this makes a lot of sense. Halftime of an NFL game is only 12 minutes, and in most NFL stadiums, it takes at least a couple minutes just to get back into the locker room and then another few more minutes to walk back onto the field. That leaves, say, seven or eight minutes for coaches to communicate adjustments to several different position groups after they spent an entire week formulating a game plan. A coach concocting a genius adjustment at halftime is mostly for sports movies. For Peyton, and most NFL players, halftime is about oranges and Gatorade.