Peyton Manning's Release

The Indianapolis Colts released Peyton Manning Wednesday. It ended a fourteen year relationship that saw almost unequaled success. Manning will be free to sign with any team after he clears the waiver wire today.

In other breaking news, the sun rose today.

All kidding about the “suddenness” of this decision aside, this still marks the beginning of the end of Manning’s career. While he’s most likely going to be playing in the NFL next year, it’s far-fetched to say he’s going to around for too much longer. Wherever he signs, it’s most likely going to be his last hurrah in the NFL.

Did this have to happen? Kind of. If we look at this move within the context of the other moves the Colts have made to this point in the offseason, then yes it did. However, if those moves had not happened, then this wouldn’t have made sense, even though they would draft Andrew Luck with the first overall pick anyway.

The fact is that because Jim Irsay decided to clean house, from top to bottom, Manning had to be a casualty. Manning was the face of that franchise, the first face the Colts have had since they were in Baltimore over 50 years ago and Johnny Unitas played for them. In a way, you can say he’s the face of the Indianapolis Colts while Unitas remains the face of the Baltimore Colts. The Organization would never have been able to move forward from this era if Manning was still on the team. It was time to start fresh. At least, that’s how Jim Irsay is going to justify this move.

The fact is that the sweeping changes Irsay is making to the team is likely going to do more harm than good. While Peyton Manning would eventually need to be replaced, it wasn’t necessary to replace him in such a hurry. Now, that certainly doesn’t mean that they should avoid drafting Andrew Luck, but transitioning from one era to the next by having Peyton Manning mentor Andrew Luck wouldn’t have hurt anything. On the whole, allowing the Polians and the coaching staff to remain in place wouldn’t have done any harm either. I get that sometimes change is needed to spark success, but that’s something that happens in losing franchises, not successful ones. A simple example would be the Pittsburgh Steelers. They’ve always been an extremely stable organization and have given their players and coaches the patience required for them to be successful.

If the Colts want to make this step forward successful, they have to show the same patience. The simple fact is that there is a very high probability (I’d say 90%) that Andrew Luck won’t be what the Colts need him to be. In case you’re wondering, that’s about a 50% chance that he will simply not be very good, maybe a 20% chance that he’ll spend most of his career getting injured or a single injury ends his career, 10% chance he’s not a good fit for the system Chuck Pagano wants to run offensively and 7% chance that he doesn’t get the weapons he needs to be successful. The remaining 3% accounts for other variables, but they all add up to Luck being, at best an average quarterback. Sadly, regardless of what he accomplishes, Luck HAS to be special. He’s stepping into a shadow that he’ll never walk out of. All he can do is try and becoming bigger than it. Overshadow one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play game, and he might be able to justify what the Colts did to get him on the field week one. No pressure right?

As to where Peyton Manning could be paying next season, I’ve been hearing a lot of different options. Teams like Seattle, Arizona, The Jets, Washington, Miami, Cleveland, Kansas City, San Francisco and even Houston have been brought up. I don’t see San Francisco being a fit personally. Jim Harbaugh would have to completely change what he built up this year for a two or three year run and, regardless of what popular opinion has been, Alex Smith is not a bad quarterback. I say the same about Houston. They’ve got a great team in place and they don’t need to rock the boat by trying to unseat Matt Schaub for no reason. I can’t see Peyton being interested in The Jets or Cleveland. The former has too much drama and the latter is not a quarterback away from a title (remember that come mock draft time.) Seattle makes sense in some areas, but I just don’t see it.

Washington has more to offer than Cleveland, including the money to go after more weapons, but I think they’re more likely to try and build through the draft, which has been their mantra since Mike Shanahan was hired. Miami makes sense, but when I look at Joe Philbin and the fact that Matt Flynn is a free agent, I think they’ve already decided to pursue him. So that leaves Arizona and Kansas City. I could see either team, but I’d lay more money on Kansas City than Arizona. Arizona acquired Kevin Kolb a year ago and he’s not really had a lot of time to show something in Arizona, but most importantly, coaching staff that went after him is still in place. I think, regardless of rumors, that the coaching staff wants to see how well Kolb can play when healthy. Kansas City has changed their coaching staff and might be more willing to pursue Manning since they have no major commitment to Matt Cassel.

No matter what happens, I don’t think we’ll ever see anything like what we saw in Indianapolis these past 14 years. Never quite as explosive, never quite as in-command, never quite as complicated, never quite as beautiful as what Peyton did in Indy.