The National Football League has cleared the Denver Broncos without penalty or fine after investigating whether quarterback Peyton Manning and offensive coordinator Adam Gase were in violation of the collective bargaining agreement by visiting the University of Alabama football offices on the same day in April.

The CBA forbids players from having individual meetings with their coaches before teams begin their offseason workout programs.

The story was first reported in the Denver Post, which in April quoted Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban as saying Gase was not in the room when he talked with Manning for an hour in the morning and then another hour in the afternoon during his one-day visit.

“Peyton Manning has been a friend and very well respected for a long time, ever since I coached in the league,” Saban said during a press conference in April. “We played him when he was in Indianapolis and I was in Miami, and his dad’s been a really good friend of mine for a long, long, long time, and Adam Gase his offensive coordinator worked for me at Michigan State and LSU.

“The two of them were just making some visits. To be honest with you, he was just trying to learn so he could be a better player, which I think a lot of people would say, ‘Wow, the guy is one of the best, if not the best, and certainly from a career standpoint probably about as good as anybody’s been in the history of the league.’ After all the experience and knowledge that he has, he’s going out and trying to seek more knowledge and understanding of the game of football so he can play better. It’s a great example for a lot of young people, whether they’re playing high school, college, Pop Warner or whatever, and it’s something that I have tremendous respect for. I really enjoyed visiting with him.”

Saban and his assistants regularly meet with coaches of other teams during the offseason, but a player is a little unusual – especially one who went to rival like Tennessee. He called the meetings mutually beneficial.

“Sometimes we have people that we ask to come in because we want to learn from them,” he said. “The goals that you have for next year are basically the things that you struggled with last year. You make a list of those things through your quality control, and then you go out and look for people who might be able to help you develop a little more expertise, a better way to teach, a better way to coach some situation. Sometimes we bring somebody in here to visit with us. Sometimes we have people call us and ask us if they can come and visit us and try to learn from us, which we share with quite a few people.

“I think we usually learn from them as well when that happens.”

Alabama opened the season on Saturday with a 33-23 victory against West Virginia in Atlanta. Denver plays its first game of the 2014 season on Sunday night at Indianapolis, against Manning’s former team.