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View Full Version : What if Peyton never left?



Denver Native (Carol)
09-14-2012, 01:20 PM
Just as every one of us sometimes faces life-altering choices, last offseason Colts owner Jim Irsay was faced with a franchise-altering choice.

Irsay could keep quarterback Peyton Manning, pay the $28 million option bonus in Manning's contract and stockpile a minimum of three extra first-round picks and one extra second-rounder in return for the No. 1 overall pick.

Or, cut Manning loose and start over with Andrew Luck, widely regarded as the top college quarterback prospect since Manning himself.

rest - http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/page/10spot-12week2/what-peyton-manning-were-colt-adam-schefter-10-spot

Chef Zambini
09-14-2012, 01:26 PM
JEs plan was to draft LUCK ! tebow magic changed that.
JE took those lemons and made lemonade !
what ifs are just a waste of energy.
we have PM, carry on.

chazoe60
09-14-2012, 01:29 PM
I think we'd be in rough shape. I think Elway would have tried to make a play for Luck or RGIII, but I don't think we would have been able to.

What is really scary to think about is that I really think planC was Weeden, and we've seen how awesome he is. :rolleyes:

weazel
09-14-2012, 01:34 PM
I think we'd be in rough shape. I think Elway would have tried to make a play for Luck or RGIII, but I don't think we would have been able to.

What is really scary to think about is that I really think planC was Weeden, and we've seen how awesome he is. :rolleyes:

I dont, I think we would have kept Tebow and looked to get Barkley in the upcoming draft

chazoe60
09-14-2012, 01:37 PM
I dont, I think we would have kept Tebow and looked to get Barkley in the upcoming draft

I don't thjnk there was any way Elway would go through another season with Tebow. He didn't want anything to do with that.

Cugel
09-14-2012, 03:08 PM
JEs plan was to draft LUCK ! tebow magic changed that.
JE took those lemons and made lemonade !
what ifs are just a waste of energy.
we have PM, carry on.

The Broncos were NEVER going to get Andrew Luck. NEVER. Colts won 2 games. How are you going to be worse than that, even if they still had Kyle Orton for 16 games he's going to win more than 2 games. Even if Tebow was a flat as he's been with the Jets he's going to win more than 2 games.

Sure, the Colts could have kept Peyton Manning. He would have re-negotiated his salary to be more cap friendly. He wanted to stay in Indy where he'd played his entire career.

They could even have drafted Luck and kept him behind Manning for a couple of years to learn. That might even have been better for his development, not to rush him.

But, the bottom line is that if you have the #1 pick of the draft and draft a franchise QB who is widely touted as the best rookie since Peyton Manning you're going to have to play him.

You can't sit him on the bench for 2 or 3 years. Not with a 4 year $22 million fully guaranteed contract.

And if you're going to have to trade or release Peyton Manning anyway why not cut your ties and get it over with while he's hurt. Letting him come back and have a good season, you're going to be forced to commit to him for the remainder of his career.

At that could conceivably last 4 or 5 more years, and will probably last at least 3 the way things look now. Disaster for Indy.

Do they pay Luck $16 million to hold a clip-board for 3 years and only THEN start to get the experience he will need to lead them to a hoped-for championship?

Better to get him the experience NOW while the team sucks and expectations are nil. Sure, he'll take his knocks and throw a bunch of picks. But, by the time he learns how to be a QB in the NFL hopefully you've brought in enough talent around him that your team is ready to compete.

Meanwhile they're going to need another 1 or 2 top 10 draft picks if they can get them to add to the talent level. Even with great drafting, they would still need at least 3 years to rebuild from the ZERO talent level to get some All-pros in there (assuming that you drafted correctly).

All in all it made ZERO sense to keep Peyton Manning, sentimentality aside. He would only have delayed the inevitable crash and made it more prolonged by winning 7 or 8 games with that crappy team and getting them a worse draft pick!

Cugel
09-14-2012, 03:17 PM
Here's the thing most people forget. The Colts still suck. Bad. They might win 3 or 4 games this year in which case they're drafting in the top 5 again next year, maybe #1 or #2 even, and can concentrate on getting some real talent. If a QB some team covets falls to #4 or #5 the Colts could do something like what the Rams did this year with the #2 pick.

Trade their pick for first-round selections in 2012 (6th), 2013, and 2014, and a 2012 second-round selection (39th). (probably not this much, but even 1/2 this much is a real steal).

If that happened, the Colts could get a LOT better in a real hurry if they drafted right. So, suddenly you have 3 or 4 top 10 overall draft picks over a 3 year period and can get a guy like a Von Miller, Marcel Dareus, or Patrick Peterson who were all top 6 picks last year, or maybe a top LT who you can plug in and he anchors your OL for the next 10 years, etc.

The point is that the Colts are poised to get a LOT better over the next 3 years with a great influx of young talent if they manage themselves right and make the right picks.

And keeping Peyton Manning wouldn't have helped that process at all.

Ravage!!!
09-14-2012, 03:52 PM
I bet the Colts win more than 3-4 games.

But as far as to what we have done.... I don't think we would have drafted Weeden. Not Elway's type of QB. But may have gone after Tannehill. Or.. simply did as we did, drafted Os in the second roudn with expectations of a competition in year 2

Simple Jaded
09-14-2012, 06:18 PM
JEs plan was to draft LUCK ! tebow magic changed that.
I always get a chuckle when people say this.......

Chef Zambini
09-15-2012, 01:01 AM
I don't thjnk there was any way Elway would go through another season with Tebow. He didn't want anything to do with that.
I agree 100 %
the best thing about signing manning was the by-product of clearing the way to unload tebow!

OrangeHoof
09-15-2012, 11:11 AM
For the Colts, I don't think it was really that big a choice. You pay $28 mil to keep your 36-year-old QB when the rest of the team was falling apart or you draft the hottest QB of the past 10 years and rebuild. Even for the Colts, that was an easy call.

For the Broncos, they wouldn't have had the chips to draft Luck, Griffin or Tannehill and would have only weakened the team by trying. I believe they would have tried again with Tebow and let the chips fall where they may. If Tebow stunk, you'd have a prime pick for Barkley or Landry Jones in 2013. If Tebow won again, maybe you get serious about building the offense around his talents and become a cult marketing phenomena. There are worse things in life than going 9-7 and making a fortune on jersey sales.

But, fortunately for the Broncos, Manning was cut loose and Elway lured him here and Tebow is gone and we don't have to dwell on "what ifs". Now the question is whether Manning can get us to a Super Bowl before his own talent fades.

Ravage!!!
09-15-2012, 11:24 AM
Jersey sales are split up between the 32 franchises anyway. So we are still making the same amount of money on jersey sales as we would if he were here (yay us). But I don't think Elway would have ever tried to build a team around a QB that can't pass the football. May have had to go one more year while drafing a young QB, but Tebow's future is not as a starting QB.

Simple Jaded
09-15-2012, 07:30 PM
The Broncos make just as much from Tebow's jersey sales as the Jets. If the owners were smart they'd just trade Tebow from team to team until he's been in all 32 jersey's knowing his fans will spend millions every year.

As for "what if?", Osweiler would be the backup to a veteran free agent. Elway didn't want Tebow.......

sneakers
09-15-2012, 08:25 PM
What if the Packers drafted Barry Sanders with the number 2 pick instead of Tony Manderich?

DenBronx
09-15-2012, 09:40 PM
I think we would have went with Tebow for another season and maybe drafted Weeden or still went with Brock later.


But....I'm glad Irsay made a horrible decision. Because we finally have a guy at QB who is a threat to score points everytime he touches the football. Manning is deffinitely an elite QB and what a difference it is when you have one on your team.

Bronco9798
09-17-2012, 03:56 PM
If Peyton was still in Indy we would be dealing with the Tebow circus once again and it would be painful. The Tebow circus media frenzy was killing the identity of the Broncos. It sucked every day turning on a sports show and instead of referring to the Broncos, it was always Tebow this Tebow that. I'm glad he's gone and gone forever. That was painful.....

slim
09-17-2012, 03:57 PM
If Peyton was still in Indy we would be dealing with the Tebow circus once again and it would be painful. The Tebow circus media frenzy was killing the identity of the Broncos. It sucked every day turning on a sports show and instead of referring to the Broncos, it was always Tebow this Tebow that. I'm glad he's gone and gone forever. That was painful.....

If you had to choose one, which would it be.

1. Cutler
2. Tebow

Bronco9798
09-17-2012, 04:00 PM
Damn you Slim......I can't do it.....I just can't.. ok,,,Cutler...ugh..That hurt.

slim
09-17-2012, 04:04 PM
Good to see you around, Niner.

MOtorboat
09-17-2012, 04:42 PM
If you had to choose one, which would it be.

1. Cutler
2. Tebow

The correct answer to this question is Griese.

Bronco9798
09-17-2012, 06:03 PM
Good to see you around, Niner.

Yo Mo!! What's up Buddy!!

MOtorboat
09-17-2012, 06:08 PM
Yo Mo!! What's up Buddy!!

I'm still not slim...

Bronco9798
09-17-2012, 06:49 PM
lol..you going to the Chiefs game this year?

MOtorboat
09-17-2012, 06:51 PM
lol..you going to the Chiefs game this year?

I made a move. I live in mid-Nebraska now, so I'm closer to Denver than KC...so long answer, no.

Bronco9798
09-17-2012, 06:55 PM
Oh wow cool. You still doing what you were doing before. Newspaper, media of some kind? I can't remember.

FlyByU
09-17-2012, 07:13 PM
What if Elway would have stayed for another year? Would TD not have been injured? Would there be 3 SB rings on his Fingers?