Tony Dungy: Peyton Manning was afraid Patriots bugged their visitors’ locker rooms

Peyton Manning never quite trusted the New England Patriots.

So says Tony Dungy, his former coach with the Indianapolis Colts.

Appearing on Dan Patrick’s radio show Wednesday morning, Dungy confirmed stories first reported by Sports Illustrated’s Peter King back in 2010 that Manning feared the visitors’ locker rooms in New England were bugged.

“Peyton talked to guys who played for the Patriots, some of the guys who came over — whether it’s true or not he treated it as true,” Dungy said. “We didn’t have a lot of strategy discussions inside the locker room there.”

Dungy went out of his way to stress that he’s not jumping on the bandwagon and calling the Patriots cheaters. He said had no idea whether the Patriots actually were trying to listen to their opponents’ conversations, and neither did Manning -- his former quarterback just was extra careful.

“Peyton takes everything to the nth degree,” Dungy said.

The NBC football analyst took to Twitter later Wednesday to urge people to “relax” about his comments.

“Concerning my comments on @dpshow --Relax people,” he wrote. “Same discussions had about Colts piping in crowd noise and turning up heat in the dome.”