NFL: MANNING, WHERE GOEST THOU?
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“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.
NFL: A retired football coach whispers, “Running backs, receivers, tight ends, special team guys, they’re like busses and taxis, there’ll be another one along soon enough.” Before anyone nearby could comment, he adds, “As for good quarterbacks, well, they’re not so easy to find.” And what an amazing find was, well, probably still “is,” QB Peyton Manning, today a free agent after 14 years with the Indianapolis Colts, having led the Colts to seven AFC South championships and two Super Bowl visits in the last five years, plus a Super Bowl win in 2007, when he was selected Super Bowl MVP.
Too, Manning has been an NFL MVP four times and has appeared in 11 Pro Bowls and has had 11 seasons of 4,000+ yards gained, six in a row. He’s also delivered more than 395 touchdown passes for the Colts. Sports Illustrated chose Manning as best QB of the last decade.
Since year 2000, seven QB’s were selected as Super Bowl MVP’s, and since the first Super Bowl in 1967, 24 of the 45 Super Bowls have produced a QB as its MVP. So, it shouldn’t surprise that seven NFL teams showed immediate interest in Manning the moment that he received free agent status.
Could Manning be a liability to whichever franchise he chooses to play for? The downside includes his age; he’ll be 36 before donning another team’s uniform. And, there’s that neck injury that kept Manning from playing in 2011---there’s no guarantee that its healing hasn’t some hidden limitations.
An upside is that while Manning may not be the QB that he was in years past, he can still be a Manning better than most other QB’s in the league anyway, and better than the QB’s on some teams that may keep bidding for him, for example, his being at center for the Washington Redskins means a better choice for them than the QB that led the ‘skins during the 2011 season.
And surely Manning could upstage the Denver Broncos current starting QB, Tim Tebow---but, how wise would it be for the Broncos to bench or trade Tebow for a QB who may only be a post-season hero for a few more seasons, when Tebow’s potential and stats suggest that he could be a contender for post-season play for a decade, or longer? Yet why would Manning want to put up with Tebowmania after 14 years in the NFL? Wouldn’t he want smoother surrounding conditions as he rides that back end of the career pyramid?
Yes, a good QB is an extremely valuable franchise asset. That said, what’s an extremely valuable asset for the good QB? If Manning is still ambitious and yearns to surpass his personal best stats, he’ll be looking at franchises that can give him that more easily than others---he’ll choose to go where the better receivers and running backs are, where the coach that he’d prefer to be working for exists, he’ll want a stand-up support network.
Of course, if money is Manning’s primary concern, he’ll go to the highest bidder. If it’s location that matters most to Manning, then he’ll likely warm to the Dolphins, since he owns a Florida home, or it could be to the Jets in New York, where he’d be close to his brother Eli of the N.Y. Giants during much of the football year, and if there’s something that he needs to prove to himself career-wise it could be to the Dolphins or the Jets, in that still being in the AFC he’d be challenged by New England, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, teams that have been to the Super Bowl in recent seasons.
Or, Manning could look toward the Redskins, where there’s an owner with enough money to buy a country, where Mike Shanahan is head coach and where there’s an offense that Manning could invigorate for recreating the experience of turning a team around the way that he helped to move the Colts onto a higher and winning plain, an added attraction the close enough proximity to Florida and NYC. However, there’s an issue here, it’s that Peyton Manning would be competing for the same division championship, that of the NFC East, as would his younger brother, Eli Manning. . .
. . . well, just like a TV channel, “the NFL knows drama.”
END/ml
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