Tony Dungy: Peyton Manning used to fear Patriots had locker room bugged

Tony Dungy confirmed on Thursday something that was reported roughly five years ago — Peyton Manning used to be paranoid that the New England Patriots were spying on him.

In an appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show,” Dungy said that there were former Patriots players who told the Colts that Bill Belichick and his crew seemed to have a way of finding out secret information about opponents and their game plans.

“We had a few ex-Patriots that said we better be careful what we do in the locker room and what you say and that kind of thing,” Dungy said. “I think a lot of that is psychological warfare. They want you to think about certain things and worry more about what’s going on off the field than on the field.”

Dungy went on to confirm a 2010 report from Peter King about Manning and then-offensive coordinator Tom Moore getting together outside the visiting locker room at Gillette Stadium when it came time to talk actual game strategy.

“That is very true,” he said, via Cork Gaines of Business Insider. “As Peyton talked to guys who played for the Patriots and some of the guys who came over [to the Colts], whether it is true or not, he treated it as true and we didn’t have a lot of strategy discussed inside the locker room [at Gillette Stadium].”

None of this is new. Ever since the Patriots were caught filming opponents’ signals, they have been accused of everything from bugging locker rooms to even more elaborate schemes during games. All of that would fall under the same umbrella as the Colts being accused of piping artificial crowd noise into their stadium. It’s just more fun when the Patriots are the subject.