Manning throws four more picks while filming commercial

INDIANAPOLIS, IN — Peyton Manning, who was recently bitten by the interception bug, threw four more picks today while attempting to complete a touchdown pass during the filming of a new MasterCard commercial.

“All they needed me to do was complete a simple post-corner,” Manning said. “For some reason though, I couldn’t do it. I threw two wobbly spirals that were caught by the guy holding the boom microphone, and one ball sailed right into the hands of the caterer. On the one, though, I felt like it should have been a completion, but the receiver bobbled it right into the hands of the best boy.”

The bevy of interceptions caused the shoot to run long, and the commercial ended up costing well more than that $20,000 budget that had been allotted.

“Look, here’s the bottom line,” said Joe Vabitz, director of the shoot. “Peyton is costing me money. Our shoot cost $18,000 for every twenty minutes that it went over, so being that we were there for an extra hour, by my calculations he owes me $54,400, and I want him to pay me now.”

Vabitz explained that Manning’s six-interception performance in the Colts’ Sunday night 23-20 loss to the Chargers likely cost Vabitz a berth in his fantasy league’s playoffs, and that the additional $400 charge is an estimate of what Vabitz would have won if he “didn’t have Rex Grossman 2.0 at quarterback.”

“I used to be the biggest Manning fan in the world,” Vabitz said. “But I cannot make this point more clear. Commercials cost money. You cannot have a QB put up an 84.2 passer rating in a commercial shoot. If I want a quarterback who is going to be awesome some days and terrible on others, I can go and get Brett Favre. He’s available – for my fantasy team and commercials as well.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!