Peyton Manning’s show ‘Peyton’s Places’ was born in Minnesota, and it comes with Vikings flavor

When Peyton Manning came to the Twin Cities for Super Bowl LII in February 2018, it was a bit of a homecoming. In fact, he even visited his old home.

Manning, the hall of fame quarterback, lived in Minnetonka in the fall of 1984 when he was 8 and his father Archie Manning was playing his final NFL season as a backup quarterback for the Vikings. Manning had some extra time after he arrived, so he and his mother Olivia went to where the family once lived.

“We drove out to my old elementary school, Tanglen, where the principal I had known when I had gone there took us on a little tour,” Manning said. “Then we went to the house we rented in 1984, and knocked on the door. The guy was looking at us through a monitor, and he said he recognized my voice. It was a bit I awkward. I said, ‘I used to live here 30 years ago, and I’d love to come in the house.’ And he said, ‘Sure, Peyton, I’ll be right down,’ and he took us through the house.”

After some sightseeing, it was time for Manning to do some business. He had come to Minnesota to talk to NFL officials about future opportunities.

At that time, Manning had been retired from the NFL for two years after starring for Indianapolis and Denver from 1998-2015, and wanted to remain close to football. And that’s when the idea for the show “Peyton’s Places” was born.

“We actually kind of met with the NFL in Minnesota and they kind of wanted to do something on the 100 years because there were so many stories the NFL Films people knew about or somebody had mentioned in an interview that they always wanted to tell but never had the avenue,” Manning said of the NFL working on plans for the 2019 season, when the 100th anniversary of the league was celebrated. “So that’s how ‘Peyton’s Places’ got started.”

“Peyton’s Places,” put out by Manning’s Omaha Productions company in collaboration with NFL Films, is now in its third season and airs on ESPN+, a subscription service. And late this year the episodes have lots of Minnesota flavor.

Manning returned to Minnesota last January and filmed three segments for the show. The first aired last month and featured Manning ice fishing with Vikings hall of fame defensive tackle John Randle. The second premiered last Sunday, with Manning talking to former Vikings star defensive end Jim Marshall about his famous wrong-way run in 1964.and being an iron man who never missed a game in 20 NFL seasons.

The third will premiere Sunday in which Manning reenacted the Miracle at the Met pass with Ahmad Rashad at the Mall of America. The Hail Mary touchdown throw from Tommy Kramer to Rashad beat Cleveland 28-23 on the final play of the Dec. 14, 1980 game at Metropolitan Stadium, which stood where the Mall of America is now.

“I love telling stories about people who have been a big part of this game,” said Manning, who interviewed Vikings hall of fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton for season two in Georgia. “I really enjoyed the stories on Ahmad, Jim and John, and I thought the episodes turned out really well.”

In the shows, Manning provides his unique brand of humor. The segment with Randle begins with Manning dragging a chain across frozen Lake Minnetonka and meeting him in an ice-fishing shed. When Randle was an undrafted Vikings rookie free agent in 1990, he had to meet a certain weight gain requirement. When he was short of it, he slipped a 10-pound chain under his warmup clothes during a weigh-in.

In the segment, Manning and Randle soon move to a luxurious ice-fishing house. Manning then talks to Randle about how he rose from obscurity to making the hall of fame.

“It was a lot of fun to do it,” said Randle, who said he has been ice fishing several times but never has caught a fish. “It was a chance to show Minnesota to Peyton, and it was one of the coldest times of the year. … Some interviews you do are so serious, but Peyton brings a sense of humor to it.”

The interview with Marshall was for a “Follies” show. Manning spoke to Marshall about running 66 yards the wrong way in a 1964 game at San Francisco to score a safety for the 49ers. But Manning also wanted to emphasize what a good player Marshall was while playing in the NFL from 1960-79, the final 19 seasons with the Vikings.

“Jim Marshall belongs in the hall of fame,” Manning said. “I talked to him about 45 minutes about football, and then the NFL Films guy said, ‘You have to talk to him about the play against the Niners.’ I didn’t want to do it. It was kind of awkward, but Jim handled it like a pro and explained what happened.”

In the upcoming segment with Rashad, Manning wears an old Kramer No. 9 Vikings jersey and Rashad his old No. 28 jersey as they stroll through the Mall of America.

“People were kind of doing double takes as we were walking through,” Manning said.

The two went to Nickelodeon Universe, the mall’s amusement park, which was closed at the time to the public. They determined the end zone where Rashad caught the ball is now the Log Chute ride. And Manning threw a pass to Rashad, who caught it while on the ride.

“We laughed a lot,” Manning said. “It was cool to see that was the site of the old Met. Ahmad was great. He seemed a little nervous about going on that flume ride and having to catch it, but it was a great shot.”

Rashad said he caught the pass on the first take. Then Manning got on the ride with him and they both splashed through the water.

“Peyton’s a funny guy,” Rashad said. “He has this way about always interjecting a little sarcasm. Our stuff was ad-libbed. You put us together and you don’t need a script.”

Manning isn’t sure when he will be back in Minnesota next for a filming, but he would welcome a return. He said he has good memories of living in the state as a boy and of his visits back.

“That’s kind of where ‘Peyton’s Places’ was born, there in Minnesota,” he said.