Jim3k
10-26-2012, 06:05 PM
From NOLA. (http://www.nola.com/saints/index.ssf/2012/10/post_235.html)
Duke was the perfect gridiron sanctuary for Manning to launch his comeback. In basketball-crazy Durham, N.C., he'd have the run of the training facilities while working in relative obscurity.
"I was in rehab state where I needed a quarterbacks coach," Peyton Manning said Wednesday, four days before his key Sunday night game against the New Orleans Saints. "I needed a weight room. I needed physical therapy. But a big part of rehab was on the field. There's only so much a physical therapist can know as far as quarterback work on the field. It's one of those deals where you kind of decided, 'Why don't I go back to somebody that knows me best.'"
Manning needed to start from scratch. He hadn't practiced or thrown a football since having a spinal fusion to repair a damaged nerve in his neck Sept. 8. It was Manning's third neck surgery in 19 months and the most risky and complicated of the three.
Manning made the first of a handful of trips to Duke in late December. With Manning's every move being monitored by a breathless media, Cutcliffe kept his arrival under wraps. Manning stayed in the guest room of Cutcliffe's house and traveled to and from campus in a black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows. Workouts were conducted in private at Duke's indoor facility and almost always at night. Cutcliffe was so intent on protecting Manning's privacy he didn't even tell his coaching staff the star quarterback was around.
"Our equipment people knew he was there," Cutcliffe said, "and that was it."
Duke was the perfect gridiron sanctuary for Manning to launch his comeback. In basketball-crazy Durham, N.C., he'd have the run of the training facilities while working in relative obscurity.
"I was in rehab state where I needed a quarterbacks coach," Peyton Manning said Wednesday, four days before his key Sunday night game against the New Orleans Saints. "I needed a weight room. I needed physical therapy. But a big part of rehab was on the field. There's only so much a physical therapist can know as far as quarterback work on the field. It's one of those deals where you kind of decided, 'Why don't I go back to somebody that knows me best.'"
Manning needed to start from scratch. He hadn't practiced or thrown a football since having a spinal fusion to repair a damaged nerve in his neck Sept. 8. It was Manning's third neck surgery in 19 months and the most risky and complicated of the three.
Manning made the first of a handful of trips to Duke in late December. With Manning's every move being monitored by a breathless media, Cutcliffe kept his arrival under wraps. Manning stayed in the guest room of Cutcliffe's house and traveled to and from campus in a black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows. Workouts were conducted in private at Duke's indoor facility and almost always at night. Cutcliffe was so intent on protecting Manning's privacy he didn't even tell his coaching staff the star quarterback was around.
"Our equipment people knew he was there," Cutcliffe said, "and that was it."