Should the Indianapolis Colts Have Kept Peyton Manning?

The Indianapolis Colts moving on from Peyton Manning and then drafting Andrew Luck was smart business back in the spring of 2012. Knowing all we now know, should the Colts have stuck it out with Manning?

It has been four years since the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning parted ways.

Four years since Manning bid Indianapolis fans and the only National Football League franchise he had ever known a tearful farewell. Four years since Manning was introduced as the new starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos. Four years since Andrew Luck was being advertised by NFL draft experts as the next Peyton Manning.

Here we are four years later, and there has still only ever been one Peyton Manning.

It would be inaccurate to say that Luck has somehow been a letdown for the Colts in his first four NFL seasons. Luck is a proven commodity who could start for any NFL franchise. A team that does not have a legitimate option at the position heading into the 2016 NFL draft would happily give up a large ransom in order to acquire the rights to Luck this spring.

What Luck has not been, however, is Manning, a player capable of defeating Tom Brady in an AFC Championship Game and a QB who can carry the Colts to a Super Bowl title. The Colts moving on from Manning and then selecting Luck with the first overall pick of the 2012 NFL Draft was a no-brainer at time. Manning was about to turn 36 years old, he was coming off of multiple neck surgeries, and there were whispers around the NFL that he would never again be the same player.

Those who have read the fantastic Gary Myers book Brady vs. Manning: The Untold Story of the Rivalry That Transformed the NFL are aware that Peyton’s famous father Archie Manning had concerns about his son playing additional competitive football in 2012.

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We now know that Manning linking up with the Denver Broncos was a brilliant piece of business for both parties. Manning was great in 2012, and he helped the 2013 Denver offense become the best regular season offense in the history of pro football. Manning went 28-10 in regular season play during his first three years with the Broncos (h/t Pro-Football-Reference), and his worst year with the club, which happened to be the final season of his historic career, ended with Manning and the Broncos winning the Super Bowl.

Not bad.

With the benefit of 20/20 vision and an ability to see past March 2012, the question has to be asked: Would the Colts have been better off announcing that Manning would remain with the club until he was ready to retire and then selling what became the Luck draft pick to the highest bidder? Should the Colts have picked Manning over Luck?

The answer in one word: Maybe.

The biggest knock on the Colts since the club was able to replace Manning with Luck has been that the team has not surrounded the young gun with adequate talent. I can think of two obvious and easy remedies for that problem:

Trade the Luck pick for a boatload of selections. The St. Louis Rams acquired three first-round picks and also a second-round pick from the Washington Redskins for the selection that Washington used to draft Robert Griffin III.
Have Peyton Manning, one of the brightest football minds to ever be in the league, around to help the Colts acquire the right free agents and also assist in NFL draft preparations.

Winning the Super Bowl is the ultimate objective for every NFL franchise. In a scenario that involves the Colts going forward with Manning for the start of the 2012 season, the club would have had one of the best regular season quarterbacks in the league for the next three years (Manning does not suffer a serious injury in this simulation) and several useful draft picks that could have been used to build a roster that could have competed for a championship by the 2014 and 2015 seasons.

Manning staying with the Colts would have never been possible had he not been willing to rework his contract. One reason it was easy for the Colts to move on from Manning is that he was owed a roster bonus of $28 million at the start of the 2012 NFL year that March. While we don’t know for sure what Manning would have done had staying in Indianapolis been a realistic option, Manning had never before been one to care first about the state of his bank accounts.

It was back in the summer of 2011 when Manning, as explained by ESPN staff writer Paul Kuharsky, gave the Colts a hometown discount.

The Colts never won a Super Bowl with Luck running the offense from 2012 up through the 2015 season when he was sidelined for much of the season because of injuries. That’s not Luck’s fault, but facts are nevertheless facts. Manning and the Broncos played in the Super Bowl twice during that time, Manning won the Most Valuable Player award for the 2013 campaign, and Manning was able to retire as a reigning Super Bowl champion QB.

Would fans of the Colts trade what could be 10-15 years of Luck leading the Indianapolis offense for Manning winning one more Super Bowl for his first NFL franchise and then all of the uncertainty that would have come with Manning retiring in March 2016? It’s an interesting topic if only because it involves so many uncertainties and an alternate universe that includes Manning retiring after 18 seasons and winning a pair of Super Bowl titles with the Colts.

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Any such talk will, of course, be silenced if Luck brings a championship to Indianapolis and if he becomes the future Hall-of-Famer so many believed back in 2012 that he would become. Luck was always going to be playing in Manning’s shadow until he guided the team to a Super Bowl just as Aaron Rodgers was with the Green Bay Packers after Rodgers replaced Brett Favre. All Luck has to do, thus, is become an ideal combination of Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers en route to winning at least one Super Bowl.

No pressure, Mr. Luck.