The NFL is all about making money and secondly winning. Win enough games to keep the fans buying tickets, buying memorabilia, buying products endorsed by NFL players. The ultimate win is the Super Bowl. Peyton Manning played for 14 years, helped the Colts win a lot of games but the Colts appeared two Super Bowls and won one of them. Hardly impressive when you look at a few other quarterbacks. Manning appears to be nice guy; he takes his job very seriously; does all the things NFL quarterbacks are supposed to do and then some but have you wondered why the Colts had no number two quarterback ready to step in if Manning got hurt? Do you suppose Manning had contractual control over all players brought into the Colts' organization and used that power to ensure he had no competition as quarterback? He is cares not about the team.
The Colts' owner bet Manning would not play another full season at an acceptable level and Manning was betting he would. Manning could have postponed the $28 million bonus until after next season, after he had proved the Colts wrong. But he did not. Could his reason have been Andrew Luck was coming in to be behind him and eventually in front of him?
Manning tells the Colts' fans he loves them but apparently he does not like where they live, Indianapolis, enough to live there. The University of Tennessee never beat Florida with Manning at quarterback and had to wait until Manning was gone and his backup stepped in to win the National Championship. Make no mistake Manning is probably a nice guy and says the right things so people like him but he is all about Peyton Manning. If he really loved the Colts' fans he would have stayed with the Colts, ensured there was someone to step in and do the job when he could not.
Now he will go to another team and hope they have an offensive line to protect him; hope they have the runners to give him time to do his thing; hope they have receivers to catch the balls he throws; and hope the fans take to him now that he has shown the world who is most important to him. After all if he makes a mistake Sundays will be very long days and he just might spend some time going to and staying in hospitals.
The Sports Analysts talk about how tough various quarterbacks are and how they take hits and keep going. Manning dives for the ground; Manning is not tough. No one talks about that. A new era is beginning in Indianapolis and I wish them luck.
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